As our readers may recall from the previous article about my neighbor and friend Bill, he had considerable problems with his mobility, arising from an auto accident years ago.  To sum it up, both legs were broken in the accident, but he recovered.  However there was some residual unsteadiness that got worse with aging.  This unsteadiness worsened, resulting in falls that necessitated surgery and hospitalizations.  Ultimately, all this resulted in him being hospitalized, needing long term care and later going to a nursing care facility for two months.

When he returned home he needed home health care and I had some concern about about his ability to move safely around his house, especially since his home had not been modified to accommodate his disabling conditions.  I implored him to put up hand rails and other safety devices, but he and his wife were reluctant to do so since they had no long term care insurance to help defray the costs.  In any event they felt they he could safely move about the house.

Then one day he fell and broke his hip! He was rushed into surgery, which went well.  Back to the nursing care facility he went to recuperate.  He was placed on strong medications to help him with pain and agitation.  However a side effect of these medicines caused drowsiness.  One day while watching TV in his wheelchair, he fell asleep and slipped out of the wheelchair, crashing to the floor and re-breaking his hip.  He was rushed to surgery, and this time he needed total hip replacement.  Then it was back to the care facility.

It was at this point that he soon began to develop urinary tract problems.  This was an agonizing problem for him.  Catheters were inserted, then he developed a urinary tract infection, which proved difficult to overcome.  On the occasions when I visited him, he viewed all his problems as being caused by the doctors and other care givers, and all he wanted was to go home.

Eventually he did get home, but the home was ill suited to care for him with his conditions.  His wife sought my advice and I advised her again to modify the downstairs bathroom and to move him to the bedroom downstairs.  His doctor and the home-visit nurses recommended a hospital-type bed that could be raised and lowered, which was done.  All these modifications had to be paid for by Bill since he has no long term care insurance. Home care therapists and nurses are still seeing him.  Of course, some of their expenses are being paid for by his regular health insurance, but his wife told me that thus far they have had over $100,000 in out- of- pocket expenses.

So you can see that Bill has been through medical hell, so to speak.  And he is not out of the woods yet, because the urinary tract problem is not completely resolved.  And though Bill is in a difficult place in his life, let’s look at how this is affecting his wife.

His wife Louise is a retired real estate agent, a very caring and socially astute person.  But Louise is about ready for the loony bin!  Bill’s traumas are causing her considerable consternation, and her psychological defense mechanisms are not helping very much.  Also, she is a part time yoga instructor, but even those techniques are limited against harsh reality.

First, she has lost about twenty pounds due to worry, extra physical activity caring for Bill, and seeing their personal funds slipping away every day.  Bill is constantly agitated and increasingly demanding of Louise.  She has to clean up after his “bathroom accidents,” he is increasingly hard of hearing and won’t consider hearing aids, thus is hard to communicate with.  She has to repeat herself with him three times and often he still doesn’t hear the full message.  She baby sits their grandchild in the afternoon to help out their daughter, so she now has two “babies” to look after.  She watches him move about the house with his four-legged walker and notes his unsteadiness even with that, fearing what she’s in for should he fall again.  Because of this fear, she had her hard-tile kitchen floor replaced with a less threatening material should he fall again, at the cost of several thousand dollars.  I have noticed that when Louise is around other people, she talks incessantly—a sign of anxiety, especially since she didn’t use to be that way.

I’m sure there are other problems they have as a couple, which are typically hidden from others.  But the bottom line here is that caring for an aging, disabled person for most people is about the hardest work imaginable.  Of course it is one of the challenges that life throws at some people, and most folks accept the challenge with their loved ones.  The trick is not to let the work destroy the care-taker. Probably the biggest problem for the care-taker is when feelings of anger arise, both at the recipient and other imagined offenders.  And anger is rarely a positive emotion; it usually causes all sorts of negative physical reactions if on-going, and shuts down the brain from rational problem solving.  Having long term care insurance, enabling the family to hire others to help and make needed modifications without undue financial worry, is a big help.

There is no doubt that long term care insurance will become increasingly important in our lives. This is because there is a confluence now that has never before existed in history.  There are two cars headed for a dangerous intersection. In one car is the medical care profession, with all its marvelous technology that is prolonging our lives so that we now can expect to live into our eighties if we take reasonable care of ourselves.  Also, this car has the ability to prolong our lives, which in prior times would have ended decades earlier, overcoming many formidable diseases and other fatal conditions.  But it is getting ready to crash with the second car in which there are aging passengers with inevitable, increasing physical and mental disabilities.  In this car are passengers with Alzheimer’s, prostate problems, cancer, heart problems, diabetes, and many other disorders that tend to arise as we get older.  For example, going back to 1900, when the average lifespan in American was in the forties, whoever heard of anyone dying from smoking-caused lung cancer, or Alzheimer’s, or prostate cancer?

Some will say that the crash has already occurred, in that the baby-boomer generation, thanks to better nutrition, health, and medical services, has lived longer than any other generation, but is now developing these old-age diseases and conditions.  And the Catch -22 is that modern medicine can help these people live longer, but not necessarily better lives, as exampled by Bill and Louise.  But it is clear that long term care insurance can certainly help.

If you’d like to learn more on how long term care can protect you and your family from having to deal with the crisis described above simply fill in this form. Either way, thanks for reading today’s blog.  LTC Tree: “Save Money.  Shop Smart.”