We have an appointment with the lawyer on Thursday for the Durable Power of Attorney for financial and medical decisions. We are also getting a Living Will. Everything we have is in both our names. In SC as long as it says or between the names either person is legal. The main reason I wanted the DPOA someone told me if you didn't have that it would be harder to place aperson in a NH. I know/hope that is a long way off but I like to be prepared.
BTW, I mentioned in a previous post that I got one of the word puzzle books for my husband. He has hardly put it down! I am in shock because he wasn't one to play any type of word game and I thought he would get frustrated looking for the words to circle. Shows you how much I know. LOL
i have to comment on the word game, as someone with significant memory loss, word games and particularly sudoku have restored my memory to near perfect, but i do see that if i quit playing these games the memory loss creeps back in. i honestly have no idea why, but i swear by it.
I think the puzzles work in the very early stages of the disease. I've got heredity for dementia. One of the joys of genealogy is that when I rediscovered my extended family I found two things. No, everyone doesn't die young in my mother's family, just my tiny part of it. Living into your 90s is actually common, on both sides of her family. However, they all also seem to have dementia when they are in their 90s.
Obviously reading and doing puzzles and being as active as you can be won't do anything for someone in Stage 5 or above, but it just might make someone in Stage 2 or 3 a lot happier and more aware.
This weekend when my married daughter was life-flighted 80 miles to a Trauma Hospital her sister signed papers for admitance and emergency surgery before I got there and the next day I signed papers for something else - can't remember now. Her husband arrived the following day and has been signing since. We had no MPOA papers and they didn't ask for any.
I found the DPOAs to be invaluable. I use them often for any medical decision for my husbands care in the ALF. I have had to us the to close some of his accounts. I used them to refinance my house and keep the house in my name. I have used them to roll over my husbands 401k savings. The list goes on. Seeing an elder care attorney and getting the paperwork in place has been invaluable!
He has been hospitalized twice this year and they never asked for paperwork. There will be times you won't need it and times you absolutely need it. It is worth the cost.
I have had an intake session with an elder care lawyer and she is working on the POA DPOA medical directives, and putting our trust up to date so my assets are safe from the clutches of a NH if that comes to pass and to put things in place to take care of our house, and requirements for dh as well. I'll get a long letter with her proposals for securing these things in the next week or so and then after study we will discuss it further and get some of those papers signed soon. DH is in good enough condition to understand all of this now though it may require re explaination later on
Mimi, I am sure the attorney is aware that if the trust is set up as revocable and you or your husband have any control over the assets in the trust it will be counted. Also it must be set up 5 years before you ever need Medicaid, even then if you have control over it and can get to the funds you will not be safe.
Yes, I have been hearing all the related horror stories about this. One thing the lawyer did say was that we may end up with two trusts. I am guessing that anything that is income to my DH will go into that and I would be the attorney in fact or whatever. I'll keep everyone posted on this.
When we did our trust in 1991, everything we had was put in the trust, house, cars, bank accounts etc but there is a part that talks to my assets as mine..not his..and that if something happened to me it would then go to him, or if something happened to us then there are directions on how it is to be distributed.
Also in her initial review she noted something that should have been updated and was not 2 years ago so there could be some other errors that need correction as well.
I am losing sleep over all of this and fell like hell most of the time. Moreover I worry about what is coming down the road with this new "healthcare" and that my DH and eventually me when I get to medicare age, could be left hanging out to dry.
Want to know what we are in for? I tried to get an appointment at the military dispensary yesterday for a skin thing I think needs checking out...well I got told I have to call back on Monday to see if I can get an appointment...they can only book appointments out a week at a time. And to make matters worse, every time you call there for an appointment the methods change. Presently my non military friends who need to see a doctor can get an appointment set the day they call..they may have to wait to be seen for routine things for a couple weeks or even a month but it is better than telephone tag hoping you can get in someday.
Mimi, The same thing happened when we lived in Ohio. Whenever I called for an appointment they would ask "Are you active duty or retired". When I said "retired" they would tell me to call back next week! I finally got fed up with it and got a doctor off base.