Personal Finances and Alzheimer's - NYTimes.com

Personal Finances and Alzheimer’s

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

The Times reports this morning on the difficult questions raised for lawyers, doctors and financial advisers when a client begins to show signs of dementia.

New research shows that one of the first signs of impending dementia is an inability to understand money and credit, contracts and agreements. It is not just families who are affected — financial advisers and lawyers say they are finding themselves in a bind when their clients’ minds seem to be slipping….All too often, though, no one protects people who are losing their capacity to execute documents and their judgment about finances. Their stories of decisions gone awry tend to end badly.

Read the full article.

TIME GOES BY | Reverse Mortgage – Part 1

by Ronni Bennett
Like so many elders, I lost a lot of money in the financial crash of 2008. There was not all that much to begin with, but enough to augment my Social Security benefit so that without undue effort, I could live comfortably, if frugally. Frugally compared to my working years, but not difficult. I didn't feel deprived.

A large chunk of my loss was due to the Lehman bankruptcy from which I will eventually see only pennies on those tens of thousands of dollars. And because, on the day of the crash, I put all remaining funds into a cash account at a miniscule, if not quite nonexistent, interest rate, since then I have not had the monthly earnings I had counted on to ease my old age.

Don't get me wrong. I am not in danger of needing a food pantry or government help in paying Medicare premiums. But I do live close to the bone and any out-of-the-ordinary expense – an unexpectedly high veterinary bill, for example, auto repair or a denture as I recently needed – means further reducing my savings or running up a high-interest-rate credit card debt. Neither is a comforting option.

Undoubtedly some of you – braver sorts than I – have benefited from market returns since the crash and would advise me to reinvest. I am not ready to do that. Even the word “invest” gives me a stomach ache. In an economic environment that still feels uncertain to me, I don't have enough money to take those chances again and until I can think about investing without vomiting, it is not a place for me to be.

I am telling you all this because after much reading, note-taking, thought and consideration over several months, I have decided to seek a reverse mortgage. Further, I believe it would be beneficial for many TGB readers who might want to consider this move to follow along through each step of a real-life experience as I investigate the possibilities, seek the best advice and make the necessary decisions.

One of the problems with reverse mortgages is that the business has a poor reputation and the people who deal in them feel sketchy. The television commercials and email solicitations, whose numbers are increasing, sound like fly-by-night operations and in fact, a consumer advisory brochure from the comptroller of the currency at the U.S. Department of the Treasury titled, Reverse Mortgages: Are They for You? [pdf], includes this warning:

“Be wary of anyone trying to sell you other products along with a reverse mortgage. Because a reverse mortgage can give you access to a large amount of funds, it can make you a target for aggressive sales pitches for expensive and inappropriate products and services.

“You should generally steer clear of anyone trying to sell you other products – such as annuities long-term care insurance, investment programs, or home repair services – along with a reverse mortgage.”

Five years ago, when I had been unable to find work for a year and was looking into how I might be able to afford to remain in my home in Greenwich Village years before I had intended to retire, I looked into reverse mortgages. My research then revealed an industry fraught with potential bad guys so slick they could skin me alive before I knew what had happened. So much so, that I gave up the idea and sold my home.

What has changed since then is that I met Saul Friedman. As you know, he writes the Saturday Gray Matters column on this blog and also contributes two Reflections columns a month.

He has recently written two stories on the benefits to elders of HECM reverse mortgages, a type I missed or misunderstood five years ago, but is insured by the federal government making them safe for both borrower and lender. You can read Saul's two reverse mortgage columns here and here.

If my new home in Oregon, on which there is no mortgage, is worth what I paid for it, and if the various reverse mortgage calculators around the web are correct, I could increase my income by about 40 percent. That is, if I took the mortgage as monthly payments; there are other options.

I don't need that much, but it would give me some financial breathing room and reduce anxiety about inevitable unexpected or even anticipated expenses that don't fit into the current budget.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The story of my search for a reverse mortgage will appear here about once a week or whenever there is enough new information for an update. I will do my best to get the people I meet along the way on the record here. I will steer you toward the best information on the web. I will do everything possible to get your questions answered.

Also, I will give you enough detail about my reverse mortgage so you understand the process – although not so much that you know everything about my financial situation. (Come on now – you're not entitled.)
One of the requirements for an HECM (FHA-guaranteed reverse mortgage) is a counseling session with a HUD-licensed reverse mortgage expert who explains all details – the upsides and down – of reverse mortgages. I've done enough reading to believe that a reverse mortgage is a good choice for me, but I am moving forward slowly and carefully, and may learn something new that changes my mind.

So we will take this critical journey together. I hope it will be useful to you in your financial decision-making.

TIME GOES BY | Reverse Mortgage – Part 1

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Queens Prosecutors Make Use of Broader Vision on Hate Crimes - NYTimes.com

By ANNE BARNARD
 
In the public’s imagination, the classic hate crime is an assault born of animus against a particular ethnicity or sexual orientation, like the case of the Long Island man convicted in April of killing an Ecuadorean immigrant after hunting for Hispanics to beat up.

But in Queens since 2005, at least five people have been convicted of, or pleaded guilty to, committing a very different kind of hate crime — singling out elderly victims for nonviolent crimes like mortgage fraud because they believed older people would be easy to deceive and might have substantial savings or home equity.

And this month, Queens prosecutors charged two women with stealing more than $31,000 from three elderly men they had befriended separately. The women, Gina L. Miller, 39, and Sylvia Johns, 23, of Flushing, were charged with grand larceny as a hate crime.

This approach, which is being closely watched by prosecutors across New York State, has won Queens prosecutors stiffer sentences, including prison for criminals who could otherwise go free, even after draining an elderly person’s savings. Without a hate crime, theft of less than $1 million carries no mandatory prison time; with it, the thief must serve for a year and may face 25.

The legal thinking behind the novel method is that New York’s hate crimes statute does not require prosecutors to prove defendants “hate” the group the victim belongs to, merely that they commit the crime because of some belief, correct or not, they hold about the group.
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Elder Abuse Resources
Elder Neglect and Abuse: An Annotated Bibliography (Bibliographies and Indexes in Gerontology)

Elder Abuse Detection and Intervention: A Collaborative Approach (Springer Series on Ethics, Law and Aging)

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Patient Money - Finding the Right Care for the Elderly - NYTimes.com

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By LESLEY ALDERMAN

TWO years ago my father, then 83, became very ill. Until then, he had been living alone in a pleasant one-bedroom apartment on the Hudson River, an hour’s drive from my home in Brooklyn.

After a couple of months in the hospital it became clear that my dad, Harvey Alderman, could not return to solo living. He was fragile and forgetful, and there was no way he could keep track of the 14 or so pills he had to take each day.

But where would he go — and how would we pay for it? Could he stay in his apartment if he had regular visits from an aide? Or should he go to an assisted-living facility where there would be more services available for him?

So began my family’s crash course in caring for an aging parent in declining health.

If you’re in this predicament, you know already there is no simple answer. Older people each have unique medical and emotional needs. And finances often dictate how far you can go in creating the ideal situation for them.
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How Blind People Identify Paper Money

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by Tom Babinszki

Before you pay for a movie ticket or for a new pair of shoes, you would always make sure you’re handing the seller the right amount. This is really simple, you just have to give a quick look at your money, take out the right amount, and that's it.

But for people who cannot see, this becomes a difficult task. Here, we will talk about the problem faced by blind people, and discuss the possible solutions for this issue.

The Problem with Paper Money

In countries such as the U.S., all denominations of money have similar sizes. This makes it very difficult for blind people to distinguish one denomination from another.

Solutions Done By Governments

Governments have devised a way to help the blind tell apart different money denominations. In countries such as Australia and Malaysia, each denomination of money has a distinct width and length. Along with this, blind people can use a small card device to quickly measure and distinguish money.

Meanwhile, a more specific approach has been done by the Canadian government. In Canada, money is being produced such that there are Braille dots in the bills that represent a specific denomination. Blind people can in turn find the corner containing the Braille dots and read them to know the amount they are holding.

Solutions Done By Blind People
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At Tiny Rates, Saving Money Costs Investors - NYTimes.com

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By STEPHANIE STROM

Millions of Americans are paying a high price for a safe place to put their money: extremely low interest rates on savings accounts and certificates of deposit.

The elderly and others on fixed incomes have been especially hard hit. Many have seen returns on savings, C.D.’s and government bonds drop to niggling amounts recently, often costing them money once inflation, fees and taxes are considered.
Read More

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AMNews: Aug. 18, 2009. Stimulus cash targets surgery center infections ... American Medical News

Image by Steve Wampler via Flickr

By Chris Silva - Federal stimulus money is headed to 12 states for on-site reviews of more than 125 ambulatory surgical centers as part of an effort to reduce the number of infections patients acquire during treatment. Read More