<p>[Veterans</a> Administration Aid & Attendance Special Pension Information by VeteranAid.org](<a href=“http://www.veteranaid.org%5DVeterans”>http://www.veteranaid.org) Midwestparent is right. This can take months and you need to be careful who helps you with it. The eligibliltiy standards seem pretty reasonable. Not sure what it is now, but when we looked into it for both mom and MIL a couple of years ago, you could have something like $80,000 in assets(in addition to a home but I could be remembering that incorrectly) and still be eligible.
Just to add- Aid and Attendance is retroactive. The process can take months but once the application is approved, the payment is made based on the date of the completed application. Not sure anyone here is eligible (many here may have parents who have too many assets to qualify) but the info may help some here in the middle of all this.</p>
<p>It seems as if the mind or the body goes. My mom, at 86, is in excellent physical health but her dementia has been progressing for the last 2 years. She recently moved to a small, caring retirement community which fortunately she loves. I’m about 25 miles away, my sister about 15. I hope she can stay there a while but I dread the day the call comes that she needs to move to a nursing home.</p>
<p>Excellent point 3togo,
My parents are in their late 60’s early 70’s and I recently insisted that it was time to update their will as I was fairly certain that it was several decades old. Thank God that I insisted!! Turned out that the will was only in my Dad’s name and there was no will for my Mom!! Can you image. I was stunned as were my parents since they had no memory of why the will was set up that way. </p>
<p>So, I set up an appt with an attorney and had a new will, POA and a living will drawn up.
If I had not insisted, this would never have happened and I shutter to think of the implications of that.</p>
<p>Regarding the VA benefit: </p>
<p>It’s true that it can take many months to process the application, but once approved, the benefit will be retroactive to the application filing date.</p>
<p>Make sure all paperwork and documents are correct, completed, signed, and included.</p>
<p>Mail the application “Return Receipt Requested.” </p>
<p>If the applicant (whether veteran or surviving spouse) is age 70 or older, include a cover letter requesting that the application be expedited due to age. VA regulations give priority to these applications.</p>
<p>bookreader - I am with you there. We set up a POA with my Mum a couple of years ago with my brother and I as the representatives. Didn’t seem anywhere needing it at the time, but thank goodness we had it this year. In just a short 3 months everything changed so much and I shudder to think how we would have handled things after she broke her hip and started becoming more confused. I guess it wold have involved courts and lawyers. Not sure how we would have handled even the moving to the care home if we did not have the POA. </p>
<p>And, as I think someone commented earlier, it seems like once she moved into the 24 hour care situation she completely lost all interest in handling her affairs. My brother started off trying to keep her involved in what was happening with her finances, but she really does not want to know (and forgets by the next time he sees her anyway). We would really have been up the creek if the POA was not already set up.</p>
<p>Well, the geriatrician cleared mom to go back to driving & resume golfing as of 4-6 weeks from the accident. He pressed on her fractured sternum and ribs and she didn’t wince or complain, only quietly mentioned that it was “a little sensitive.” The doc and I were pretty amazed, as it’s only been 3 weeks since she fractured them. She has only taken about a total of a handful or slightly more OTC tylenol and Alleve but mostly has refused to take pain meds. We sure hope we take after her!</p>
<p>On the other hand, H has an aunt in hospice. She had a mental breakdown in Germany when she was in her early 20s or so. She has been in varying living situations since, including living on the streets for many years and more recently a series of care homes and nursing homes. She has had a tough life. We have not been a part of it, as H has only the most fleeting memories of her & I am not sure I met her before we visited her in hospice. </p>
<p>Her nephew who is her power of attorney and taking care of her interests was telling us that so many of the care homes are sub-par but the state says they are needed even though about 1/2 of them have serious violations and should be shut down. The amount they charge/receive per patient fluctuates wildly, from up to $10K/month for a bed down to $1500/month. When the patient has relatives, they can ask them to pay more if the relatives want the patient to be able to stay and not be bumped because someone is interested who can pay more.</p>
<p>Her nephew said at one care home she was in, 7 days a week, she was served the exact same thing, bologna and cheese sandwich with chips.</p>
<p>Thanks for starting this thread, I’ll be lurking with interest. My mom is in a very good CCRC, and POA, will, etc. are set up well. MIL/DIL are still living at home. Good news is that all 3 sons live within 50 miles. Bad news is that DH has no idea if they have current wills or POAs, and no one is watching the finances. MIL has had many medical issues, and DIL is clearly losing mental capacity, but no one wants to say or ask anything. All must be fine since they haven’t asked for help, right?</p>
<p>Good to see this thread. I’m not quite a caretaker but have spent a lot of time trying to set up services for my MIL and taking her to medical appointments. Scary thing is she is only 68 years old! But due to mental illness and physical ailments (mostly back and knee pain due to being obese and completely sedentary) she has become housebound. Things got to a crisis point a couple of months ago – we learned that she had been falling in her apartment (she is in such bad physical condition that sometimes she can’t get up when she falls – on one occasion the police had to break down her door to get in to pick her up off the floor) and had stopped leaving the apartment, stopped doing laundry (and had thrown away all her sheets and most of her clothing as they got dirty), was living in filth, didn’t have food or toilet paper in the apartment (even though she can order from the local supermarket, she hadn’t been doing so), was incontinent to the point that she was urinating on the floor (and then slipping and falling in the puddles of urine). UGH. </p>
<p>We usually see her once a month for dinner but had missed a month because she said she was sick, so had no idea how bad things had gotten till the superintendent of her building called. She did not want help. My husband can’t deal with her in an effective manner – she was an abusive parent and still has a lot of hostility toward him, he can’t on some level accept that she is mentally ill and tries to reason with her as if she was rational. So I had to deal with her. After many many phone calls, I got her set up with the Visiting Nurse Service, and they have been great. But unfortunately that will end soon, because MIL has Medicare, not Medicaid. Although to see her on the street, you would think she was a bag lady in her ancient clothes full of holes, she actually has $100K in the bank that she refuses to spend. And we pay her rent. So she will never qualify for Medicaid. The whole thing is so dysfunctional and will only get worse as she gets older and crazier. </p>
<p>Meanwhile my own father at 72 has frontal lobe dementia and Parkinsonian syndrome. My mom is taking care of him, which involves a lot of clean-up as he is totally incontinent. On the positive side, the dementia has made him much more pleasant – he was a nasty SOB as long as I knew him, verbally and emotionally abusive to my mom, but now he is mellow, thanks her for what she does for him, is happy just to sit in a chair all day watching TV. So they are managing, except they are going to run out of money next year and will need significant financial assistance to stay in their apartment (which is a good set-up for them, so they need to stay there).</p>
<p>So thankfully I am not in the position of providing hands-on care for any of these people. But they still present plenty of challenges, and it’s not going to get any easier as time goes on.</p>
<p>^ if your MIL has a mental illness maybe your husband could be named guardian and then he could manage things like bringing help into the house and the money (and becoming eligible for medicare). Forcing these issues has been the most trying on our relationships but a necessary evil to see my Mom gets the care see needs.</p>
<p>^^^ Yes I think one day it will come to that. My husband was going to explore that avenue at the point when she was saying she didn’t need any help. But now she is very happy with the visiting nurse service and the homecare aides that are being provided. The most pressing issue right now is who is going to pay for an aide when Medicare stops? Because she should really have one, at least one day a week. I think she should be spending her own money now, rather than ours, but this is a big, fraught issue and I am going to try to stay out of it. :)</p>
<p>My parents had new wills done last year and the atty rode roughshod over their wishes. I was supposed to be executor, but the atty put down me and my sister who is local. Based on their state’s law, that means my sister and I must BOTH sign everything that comes down the pike. Not helpful. </p>
<p>Their will also says to divide the estate (such as it is) by five – but my parents want my sister to be able to buy the remaining interest in the house which my parents purchased for her (and sis pays rent, though not at market rate). Note that mom and dad are trying to pay off this place as quickly as possible. They do not seem to realize that the equity is part of their estate and that under the current will, my sibs are entitled to a share (I intend to forfeit my share, as my other sibs need the $$ a lot more) – and the equity in that house will be way more than 20% of total assets. To complicate things, there is a good chance my folks will qualify for Medicaid at some point, which means the house my sister rents would have to be sold to pay for medical expenses (Georgia has a restitution clause, and this house is not my parents’ primary residence).</p>
<p>Mom and Dad refuse to change the will, but have told me explicitly what they want to have happen. (I would be happy with a letter, signed by them, of their intentions.) I do not want to be landlord to my sister or to have to evict her in order to pay back Medicare, and I do not want all my sibs angry at me because this sister may get a larger share. My feeling is that because she is in the same town as my parents and is the one who handles the day-to-day stuff with them, she earns an extra piece – but my sibs don’t feel that way.</p>
<p>Both are still in full possession of mental faculties, so guardianship is not happening any time soon. They do have medical directives and POAs with me or my sister as a backup. I still feel like I’m going to get all the blowback on this because Mom and Dad don’t want to say what they mean. Grrr. Not that this is anything new in my family’s dynamics…</p>
<p>We tried to get my folks out of their split level house and into a rancher before my mom broke her leg, since she was already having mobility troubles. Too late now. Takes an ambulance and five guys to get her to a doctor’s appointment. They refused to consider a senior living arrangement back then, either.</p>
<p>The elephant in the room is that my mom has been bedridden for ten years (broken femur that did not heal, congestive heart failure, diabetes, blood clots and extreme obesity) and my dad, a retired nurse, takes care of her 24/7. He is 75 and has his own health issues. They refuse to have home health folks come in and help; they tried that last year while my dad was in the hospital for a procedure. Mom wound up with a MRSE infection – the kind that gravitates to hardware in the body, such as her knee replacement. It has not gone away and there are signs that the bacteria is becoming resistant to antibiotics. My sister absolutely cannot afford to quit her job to care for them. She is the primary wage earner and has the medical insurance for her own family. </p>
<p>Even if I go down to visit, I cannot help in Mom’s care – I can’t lift for toileting or changing linens. I do laundry and clean up the mess Dad has made since the last time we were down there.</p>
<p>Simpkin and CountingDown and everyone:</p>
<p>Wow, its easy to see many of us are in the same boat - dealing with elderly parents who are incapacitated in some way - mentally, emotionally, physically. </p>
<p>What struck an especially poignant chord was the poster who wrote that their own parents at her age were much freer than we seem to be now - maybe because people are just living longer? I am in my 50’s, and both my parents at that age were free to do what they wanted, and were well enough to travel and work. I do feel like I went straight from kid - raising (am still involved there too, and my kids are in their 20’s, than my parents ever were involved with me) to parent care-taking. we truly are the sandwich generation.</p>
<p>Counting Down: The way many wills are written if you forgo your inheritance and step aside, your portion would not go to your siblings but to your children. Stepping aside is treated as if you predeceased your parents and many wills have standard language giving the predeceased child’s inheritance to that person’s child not to her sibs.</p>
<p>It is hard to see your parents going down hill. My dad is still with it mentally but has taken up some very odd habits, like keeping 50 cent pieces all over the house. Every jar, box, nook and cranny is stuffed with them. He knows its odd but he says he enjoys doing it. Strange.</p>
<p>I totally agree with that. My parents helped out relatives here and there having them live with us but it was never more than a few months at most. Maybe it is because people have a lot more surgeries now and a lot of medical stuff at the hospital like colonoscopies and medical tests. It seems like I am at the hospital every few weeks. My grandparents never went through all that stuff. Right now my mother has to have blood test every two weeks for 2 different doctors.</p>
<p>I was agreeing with San-dee. My mother was telling me a few weeks ago how she did all this traveling and stuff in her 50’s and 60’s and I told her that I haven’t gone on a trip in almost 30 years.</p>
<p>I won’t take the money – if I am gone before my parents, DH knows that my intent is to have it divided by four. When my grandmother passed away, my dad’s sibs divided by six kids (including one who died as a child) and gave two shares to my aunt, who had stayed in town and cared for their parents for many years. </p>
<p>There will not be enough $$ to make a difference to me, DH or my kids. DH and I were fortunate enough to put ourselves through college and make a decent life for ourselves. My sibs need it more than we do.</p>
<p>What I was saying is that you will have to gift your share to your siblings, the money would not go to them automatically by you disclaiming your share.</p>
<p>My kids were just 5 and 8 when my mother moved into assisted living because she was developing dementia. I’ve been a member of the sandwich generation for awhile. I used to say I felt like a squished peanut butter and jelly sandwich.</p>
<p>I think my mother was around my age when my grandfather started needing assistance, but I was in college by then. She also helped with my grandmother (going to doctor’s appts, etc), who died when I was 14, but my grandfather and his sister were the primary caretakers. My mother’s family all lived near each other, so there was lots of support available.</p>
<p>My father’s parents both died before I was in college. My mother’s mother lived until I was in my 20s and lived through the horror of a broken hip leading to dementia and never being able to live by herself again. She spent her last couple of years in a nursing home with no idea where she was, crying to go home, asking for relatives she hadn’t seen since childhood, asking for her dead husband. She was in and out of the hospital with pneumonia. So much effort was put into keeping this sick, miserable lady alive. </p>
<p>I told my husband that if/when I develop dementia, I want NO medical care other than to alleviate pain – no antibiotics, certainly no feeding tube, etc. If I get pneumonia when I’m old and demented, I want to die of it. I feel very clear about this but I’m not sure he believes me. We do both have living wills but I think I need to write out something in more detail to give to him. Meanwhile, my MIL has nothing in place – no living will, no POA, probably no will at all. It is impossible to talk to her about this stuff because she is terrified of death, terrified of hospitals, terrified of nursing homes. I think she would be quite happy in assisted living, but she freaks out if it’s brought up.</p>
<p>
Agreed … the laws about estates are pretty complicated. Another strategy would be to take the inheritance and then gift the money to your siblings. The current limit is $13k per year. So you can give $13/yr to each sibling and also to each sib’s spouse … and your wife can give $13/yr to each also … so if there are couples on both sides you can move $50k/yr. (PS - and if you give money to their kids (fund a 529 for example) you could given even more)</p>