Switched roles




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Switched roles

By Pamela Yip, Dallas Morning News

September 30, 2003

Barbara Earp's 87-year-old mother is in a nursing home, has Alzheimer's disease and is unable to speak. Helping take care of her, though, is a calling that she lovingly takes on.

Earp, 59, said she wouldn't think of leaving her mother completely in the care of others.

"I get an enormous sense of satisfaction when she gives me a kiss the times she's able to respond to that, when she pats me on my back when I'm holding her, when I lay my hand on the side of her face and on her cheek and she just lays her head over it," said Earp, a legal secretary. "If I'm not there, I would miss those things."

You can't put a price on those moments. Unfortunately, they do come with a very real cost.

The average daily rate for a private room in a nursing home in Dallas is $146.69, according to a MetLife study conducted this year.

Nationally, the average daily rate for a private room in a nursing home was up 8 percent over 2002.

Earp, who's single, is one of millions of Americans — many of them baby boomers — who are or will be taking on the role of caregiver for their parents as the population ages. Experts say the burden can be alleviated somewhat with careful financial planning.

Family caregiving for people 50 and older is widespread in the United States and is increasing, according to the 1999 study by the MetLife Mature Market Institute, the earliest available.

"Elder care is the big issue that child care was, because people are getting older, and as their parents are getting older, they're now having to deal with elder care," said Lue Taff, elder support director at the Senior Source, Senior Citizens of Greater Dallas, which serves the elderly.

"Over the next 10 years, the total number of employed caregivers in the United States is expected to increase to between 11 (million) and 15.6 million working Americans — roughly one in 10 employed workers," according to the MetLife study.

Many of those workers are members of the "sandwich generation" — those caught between caring for aging parents just as they're trying to pay for their kids' college and save for their own retirements.

"The very wealthy families will be able to weather a long-term care situation, and the very low-income may get some help from Medicaid, but it's those of us in the middle who really have a large financial burden with long-term care," said Bonnie Lawrence, spokeswoman for the Family Caregiver Alliance in San Francisco, a caregivers advocacy group.

Thirty-three percent of working women cut their work hours to care for a chronically ill loved one, 29 percent passed up job promotion training or an assignment, 16 percent quit their jobs, and 13 percent retired early.

All that has an "immense impact" on caregivers, said Alan Goldfarb, a certified financial planner and director of financial strategies at Weaver and Tidwell Financial Advisors Ltd. in Dallas .

"Even if you're not financially responsible (for your parents), the fact is that you're going to be spending time — mental and physical — that's going to drain you personally and it might affect your ability to earn a living," he said.

What's unique about caregiving is that it often is thrust upon a person by the sudden illness of a parent or by a phone call from the loved one's doctor that sends an adult child rushing to the parent's side — often from far away.

"Few people have the luxury of planning in advance for their role as caregiver," said Donna L. Wagner, director of the Center for Productive Aging at Towson University in Towson , Md.

Few caregivers are ready for the economic hit they might have to take. Many caregivers dig into their own wallets to help buy items and services for loved ones, with food, transportation and medications being the three most common expenses.

The highest average amount spent by caregivers a month, $364, went for assistance with rent or mortgage payments, with expenses for home care professionals, $322, following closely, according to MetLife.

On average, caregivers helped with those expenses for two to six years and spent a total of $19,525 in out-of-pocket expenses, the study said.

If you've suddenly become a caregiver, it's important that you begin making adjustments to your budget as soon as possible.

"They should really understand what their budget is and make it realistic," said Shashin Shah, a certified financial planner at Financial Design Group in Addison , Texas .

"If something happens, who's going to stay home?"

Help from the government is limited. When it comes to long-term health care, many people incorrectly assume that Medicare, supplemental policies or standard health insurance will cover the expenses.

In fact, Medicare, the federal health insurance program for the elderly, doesn't have a comprehensive long-term care component and generally doesn't cover assisted-living costs.