Posted by catherine jacobs on Tue, Aug 24, 2010 @ 09:07 AM
The Technology for Monitoring Elderly Relatives
Published: July 28, 2010 (New York Times)
“IF I ever need to go to a nursing home, kill me first.”
The Philips Medication Dispensing Service reminds users to take their pills; if it’s ignored, the service alerts a designated caregiver.
In an emergency, Philips Lifeline users push the button of a pendant that can be worn around the neck, alerting the Lifeline call center.
That was what my mother had said to my brother and me from time immemorial. Of course, we never carried out her wish, but at 98 — her mind still sharp, but her muscles failing (after several serious falls) — she reluctantly agreed to enter her worst nightmare: assisted living. Until her death at 100 last July, she was convinced that she had made a mistake.
Leaving one’s home, friends and the life one knows for a nursing home is neither easy nor often pleasant. But for many of the elderly, there has been little choice. When you cannot take care of yourself, you may need constant assistance to help you remember to take your medicine, to make sure you are active and to generally make sure you remain safe in your home.
In the last few years, a series of technological developments has given parents and their adult children some new options (as described in a related article that begins on Page 1 of this section). Devices and Internet-based solutions are becoming available that allow caregivers to keep an unobtrusive, high-tech eye on their family members, ensuring that they’re safe, healthy and well cared for.
“If an individual can be safe at home, family relationships are enhanced and costs are reduced,” said William Kaiser, a director of the U.C.L.A. Wireless Health Institute, a research group that examines the intersection of technology and health care. “New technologies are creating a revolution in the ability of individuals to stay at home,” he added. “The benefits to society are profound.”
Coordinating Care
Caring for the elderly is rarely the job of a single person. But coordinating that care can be a burden of its own. A simple way to find and organize family and friends is through the Web site Lotsa Helping Hands (lotsahelpinghands.com). On the free site, caregivers set up a members-only community (you invite others to join). When a task needs to be accomplished, whether it is taking a person to the doctor or doing the shopping, it is posted on the site’s calendar and an e-mail alert goes out to the community. Those available to help sign up.
Lotsa Helping Hands can take the awkwardness out of asking specific individuals for help, while making it easy for everyone to see what needs to be done.
Basic Home Monitoring
Philips Lifeline (lifelinesys.com) is a home-monitoring system that provides a basic but essential set of features for about $38 a month.
When an emergency occurs, users push the button of a pendant that can be worn around the neck, alerting the Lifeline call center. An operator talks to the client through a speakerphone device to find out what is happening. If there is an emergency, or there is no answer, the call center phones caregivers and emergency medical personnel.
For an extra $12 a month, the Lifeline service will add its AutoAlert fall-detection feature, contacting the call center automatically whenever a fall is detected. According to Rob Goudswaard, the head of innovation for Philips Home Monitoring, the system has a very low level of false positives.
Customized Services
For those with advanced physical ailments, the ability to contact emergency personnel may not be enough. It wasn’t for Jean Roberts, a 79-year-old retired nurse who had a brain aneurysm 20 years ago, and now suffers from a seizure disorder. She and her daughter, Carol, 52, who is also disabled, set up a system of customized sensors from GrandCare Systems (grandcare.com).
With GrandCare, which averages between $15 and $25 a day, Carol receives cellphone alerts whenever a user-defined set of parameters is breached in her mother’s nearby Daytona Beach, Fla., home.
“I used to call and check on her constantly,” Carol said. “If she gets confused, she wouldn’t remember to push a pendant.”
Carol is automatically alerted if her mother’s front doors are opened before 7 a.m. or after 10 p.m., and a bed sensor alerts her if her mother doesn’t get out of bed by 9 a.m.
If her mother’s home is too hot or too cold, she knows that, too. And if her mother begins to get confused and wanders rapidly from room to room, her daughter also receives an alert.
To help the elder Ms. Roberts feel more connected, she can receive e-mail messages and photographs through the GrandCare system, displayed on her TV or an available touch-screen display.
As her mother ages, Carol expects to add other features. “If she gets worse, we’ll write another parameter, that she can’t leave the house unless I’m notified,” she said. “She has no intention — none — of going into an assisted-care facility.”
For the monitoring of symptoms associated with heart failure and diabetes, Ideal Life (ideallifeonline.com) in Toronto offers a number of devices, including a scale, a blood-pressure meter and a glucose monitor that automatically send data to the company’s Web site, where it can be examined by a caregiver. Text messages or e-mail alerts can also be sent automatically to a caregiver’s smartphone.
Posted by catherine jacobs on Thu, Jun 24, 2010 @ 09:50 AM
Many of us don't have a will. What happens if you die without a will?
Here is how your estate will be divided:
If you die without a will (known as dying "intestate") in Michigan, your assets will be divided amongst your immediate family. If you have a spouse but no children or parents, your entire estate will go to your spouse.If you have a spouse and parents but no children, the first $150,000 plus three-fourths of the balance of your estate will go to your spouse. If you have a spouse and at least one child, the first $150,000 plus one-half of the balance of your estate will go to your spouse. The remainder will go to your children.
If you have children and no spouse, your entire estate will go to your children. If you have parents and no spouse or children, your entire estate will go to your parents. If your parents are no longer alive, your estate will go to your siblings.
You don't always have to have a Will. Alternatives to a Will
Wills eventually become public after your death, with the details of what you owned and how much it was worth available to anyone curious enough to read the court file. As a result, many people look for more private ways to transfer their assets.
In Michigan, alternatives to making a will include:
- Life insurance policies or trusts
- Gifting cash or other assets before your death
- "Transfer On Death" ("TOD") or "Payable On Death" ("POD") bank accounts
- Holding assets by joint tenancy with right of survivorship ("JTROS"), with the assets transferring automatically to the other joint tenant at the time of death
- Holding assets through a tenancy in common, with each tenant having a divided interest in the property which can be independently sold
- Retirement plans and Individual Retirement Accounts ("IRAs")
- "Revocable living trusts" (sometimes called "grantor trusts"), giving all your assets to a trustee for management before your death
Making a Will
In Michigan, you can make a valid will if you are at least 18 years old and of sound mind. The will must be in writing and signed by you and two witnesses.
A Michigan lawyer who does a lot of estate planning can explain the consequences of some of the most basic choices you must make, such as whether property you want to leave to your minor children should be put into a trust at your death. For that reason, it makes sense to consult with a Michigan estate planning lawyer and have him or her draft your will, so that you don't make costly mistakes or accidentally not accomplish what you intended.
Putting together your estate plan is generally a simple process. At Dykema Law Offices, we can advise you on the best estate planning package for your circumstances.
Contact us today: dykemalaw.com or 616-363-6611
Posted by catherine jacobs on Wed, Jun 16, 2010 @ 09:34 AM
Who Needs Estate Planning?
Regardless of whether your estate is large or small everyone can benefit from estate planning. It's important for all of us to designate someone to manage our assets and make health care and personal care decisions for us when we become unable to do so for ourselves.
If any of the questions below seem relevant to you, then an estate plan is important for you and your family to pursue.
- Who will receive your assets after your death?
- Who will pay your last debts?
- Who will make health care decisions for you if you are unable?
- Does your family know your feelings when it comes to life support?
- Would you like any of your assets donated to charity?
- Do you know how to preserve your assets for your beneficiaries and reduce or postpone the amount of estate tax which otherwise might be payable after your death?
When individuals fail to plan ahead, a judge appoints someone to handle your assets and personal care. Your assets will be distributed to your heirs according to a set of rules known as intestate succession. Under intestate succession your assets may not be given to your choice of heirs. An estate plan gives you control over who will inherit your assets after your death. If the court has trouble locating your heirs after a period of time, your estate will escheat (be given) to the State of Michigan.
CATHERINE JACOBS, AT DYKEMA LAW OFFICES, CAN ASSIST YOU WITH ALL OF YOUR ESTATE PLANNING NEEDS. CALL TODAY FOR A FREE CONSULTATION.
616-363-6611 OR EMAIL AT: chj.dykema@tds.net
Posted by catherine jacobs on Mon, Jun 14, 2010 @ 09:21 AM
From Times Online
June 4, 2010
Al Gore's divorce is the Tipper the iceberg
The couple's split after 40 years shows how many people discover in their 60s and beyond that they want different things
Helen Rumbelow
Recommend? (2)
This week's announcement that Al Gore and his wife Tipper are divorcing after more than 40 years of marriage has caused many to ask: why bother? If you're old enough to divorce after your daughter has been divorced, maybe that's a sign that you are too old.
Now, there are many fascinating aspects to this development, including the chance to reread the Gores' jointly authored book on the joys of marriage, Joined at the Heart, or indeed to follow the new Twitter trend of thinking up pick-up lines for Al ("wanna see my hanging chad?"). But unnoticed among them is the fact that it is pensioners such as Al (62) and Tipper (61) who are the only ones bucking the trend of a lower divorce rate. It's as if, like taking up golf or ballroom dancing, this is another hobby that you have time for only in your retirement.
The Office of National Statistics shows that the rate of divorce is dropping sharply in every age group, except the over-60s - this includes every age over 60, because the statisticians never anticipated the need to start separate graphs for the seventies, eighties, and nineties. The world's oldest divorcés, Bertie and Jessie Woods, made history last year by divorcing when they had both reached the age 98.
So why, instead of cruising off into their dotage hand in hand, are the grandparent generation single-handedly dragging the average divorce age up every year? I talked to Andrew Smith about his parents' recent separation. Normally you would expect to conduct this discussion with a shell-shocked pre-schooler, or a resentful teenager. But Smith is himself 55, and his parents are in their eighties. Was that not, I inquire tactfully, a little late in life to look for pastures new?
"I think so, yes, in that this is the time of life when they actually need each other," he says. "But there is also an intolerance that comes with age. My mother and my father wanted different things in terms of where they wanted to live, and in the end they decided not to compromise. At lot of people of their age lead increasingly separate lives - separate bedrooms and so on. But they needed more. There's independence of spirit there, but selfishness too. The support that my mother needs, other people in the family have to take that responsibility."
Stephanie Coontz, the author of Marriage, a History notes that getting married in the late 1960s or 1970s was a big risk factor. Why? Partly because people still married very young (Tipper was 21 and Al 22 when they got hitched). And partly because life expectancy is now so much longer that those who are unhappy by the time the kids leave home know they have many decades stretching out ahead of them. In 2007, the latest figures available in the UK, 50 per cent more over-60s got divorced than ten years previously.
For women such as Ella Cook, who married young and had children young, it takes longer to find the confidence to leave. Cook left her husband at the age of 65 after nearly 40 years of marriage.
"One of the reasons I hung on was that I had a very powerful husband, and having married young I didn't see myself as an individual. It took me a long time to imagine a life of my own," she says. "In the end the unhappiness becomes so great that you are prepared to sacrifice 40 years for it. It's very sad, because that's 40 years of history. If you divorce after 15 years, you can do it all again, get married again, maybe have more children. But after 40, you don't have as much time. It's sad for grown-up children, and complicated for grandchildren. But you just can't go on."
A study of post-40 divorce by the American support group for older people, AARP, found that 60 and 70- -year-olds appreciate life after divorce the most of any of the ages, citing a fresh lease of life from forging a new identity. Christine Northam, a counsellor with Relate, said that the service was seeing increasing numbers of sixty-somethings divorce: "It is a trend of significance, and I think that it has something to do with the changing role of women. They may have stayed together for the children, but after the children have gone women are looking for more self-fulfilment; they feel more independent. In their fifties and sixties, they realise they may have another 30 years of active life, and they think that life could be more exciting."
In some ways, then, it's not a fear of death that prompts the change, but the confidence that old age gives you. In talking to people who escaped a marriage when they were issued with their Freedom bus pass, I realise that I kind of admire them for not crumbling away into her kitchen and his garage and silently rancorous mealtimes. They chose a new life, at the end of life.
In his novel Immortality, Milan Kundera poses a difficult question. If, after death, you were given the chance of another turn, another spin on earth, and you were given the opportunity to have the same life partner for another 40 years, would you? It's a tough one, because even in the happiest marriages, people do wonder.
And when you're nearing your own mortality in a long and unhappy marriage, increasing numbers of people do more than wonder.
Some names have been changed
Posted by catherine jacobs on Tue, May 11, 2010 @ 08:50 AM
The Reality
We all know the statistics: 50% of all marriages will end in divorce. Many of these divorces (75% of men and women who divorce under the age of 45) will lead to second marriages and create blended families. Divorce statistic show that divorced men and women with children tend to remarry more quickly than their counterpart without children.
Putting everything in perspective
Many estate plans overlook or fail to consider estate planning issues for blended families. Issues that are often overlooked are disinheriting your ex-spouse, protecting your own children, providing for your new spouse, and considering the children of your new spouse. Top these issues off with the concern of tax savings and you can the need for careful consideration.
What to do with Your Ex-Spouse
First and foremost on most divorce couple's minds is: Will my ex-spouse inherit any of your money? Many divorced adults believe that they are protected as Michigan law automatically terminates an ex-spouses interest in your assets. Maybe, maybe not! What if your ex-spouse is designated in an employer provided life insurance policy? If you fail to act and change the beneficiary designation there is federal law which holds that the insurance policy should be administered according to federal law. Federal law would provide that the ex-spouse is the beneficiary, contrary to the state law.
Let's take it a step further
Without proper estate planning, in most cases, your ex-spouse (as surviving parent/guardian) would, likely, be appointed by the probate court to manage the inheritance you might leave to your minor children. So if you die without estate planning, before your ex-spouse, any inheritance you leave to your children will most likely be controlled by your ex-spouse.
One more painful step...
Assume that your children die before your ex-spouse. Who will inherit the assets your children received when you died? The answer is your child's next of kin--your ex-spouse.
Your New Spouse
Now you're remarried and have a new spouse. How does your new fit into the equation. Let's assume that you don't have a prenuptial agreement which provides for the separate maintenance of assets. Let's also assume that your new spouse is the beneficiary on your life insurance, bank accounts, etc. Now, assume that you predecease you new spouse. The result of this scenario is that your biological children could be forever disinherited. This goes on and on, for example, upon the death of your new spouse, most likely all the "blended assets" will be inherited by your step children, a replacement spouse, and subsequent children.
There is no right or wrong when it comes to estate planning. There is only "wrong" when you fail to plan. The new spouses must address planning so that they can carefully craft documents that will meet their estate planning needs as it relates to their newly created family dynamics.
YOU CAN PROTECT YOURSELF, YOUR NEW SPOUSE, AND ALL THE CHILDREN OF YOUR NEW FAMILY. YOU JUST NEED TO PLAN.
Call Dykema Law Offices to discuss your estate planning needs.
Posted by catherine jacobs on Wed, Apr 28, 2010 @ 02:03 PM
www.dykemalaw.com
Many people are receiving letters or postcards in the mail stating that you need to re-do your estate plan because of the newly enacted Michigan Trust Code.
The new MTC took effect April 1, 2010 in an effort to clarify the existing estate planning laws. The new MTC also was drafted to put all the trust law in one section of the Michigan Compiled Laws.
So, do you need a new estate plan?
If you already you have a revocable "living" trust, most likely you don't need to change your trust. It is only under unusual circumstances would a new trust amendment be required as a result of the MTC. Rest assured that the MTC was not enacted to render all previously drafted trusts useless or out-of-date. Nothing is further from the truth.
You will keep getting letters in the mail claiming that you need to have your trust changed because of the new MTC -- don't panic. Remember, however, that it is always a good practice to have your estate plan reviewed periodically. As your situation changes (guardian issues, death of fiduciaries, buying and selling of trust assets), you should made the corresponding changes to your trust.
We can evaluate your existing trust to determine if you need to amend your existing trust. If you're like most of us, you need to have a trust prepared or updated. Let us get it done today.
Dykema Law Offices -- Estate Planning Made Simple
Posted by catherine jacobs on Tue, Apr 13, 2010 @ 08:47 PM
Why do young parents need a Will?
In an Associated Press story reported online at http://sphere.com/, it become instantly clear why parents of young children should have a Will. The AP story reports on tragic car accident that instantly killed the parents, Karl Heiss and Marisa Bauducco-Heiss. Their 10-year-old daughter was left with with a catastrophic brain injury. Alden, the Heiss' 6-year-old son was injured, however, he fully recovered.
After the accident the Heiss' good friend, entrusted with their 7-sentence, 2 page holographic Will, brought it to the attention of the two sets of grandparents. The Will directed that Marisa's parents, who lived in the village of Ushuaia, near Terra del Feugo at the tip of South America, should have custody eleven months of the year. Karl's parents, of Malibu, California, would have the children one month of the year.
Disagreements about medical care were initially a problem. Language barriers made complicated matters even more. A custody battle ensued. The California judge upheld the terms of the holographic Will.
The story is worth reading. I strongly recommend reading this article, especially if you are a parent of a minor child. "After Crash, Kids Torn Between Nations."