According to the U.S. Census Bureau the country”™s citizenry is getting older ”” much older. By 2030, more than 20 percent of U.S. residents are projected to be aged 65 and over, compared with 13 percent in 2010 and 9.8 percent in 1970.
Accordingly, the health care industry is poised to be one of the fastest growing industries with estimates of 4.1 million jobs added between 2012 and 2020 ”” a 26 percent increase in health care employment, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
With that demographic shift comes the need for both the elderly and their adult children to plan and prepare for the new realities that set in during the later stages of life ”” realities at-home elder care service providers like the nonprofit Staying Put in New Canaan know all too well.
“If we can”™t get out of dying, we might as well plan for it,” said Barb Achenbaum, executive director of Staying Put.
The Staying Put organization and the New Canaan-based Alliance of Business Professionals will sponsor two discussion panels in April and May titled, “Mortality and Practicality: Conversations on End-of-life” that will address in detail a variety of topics facing the elderly and cover the spectrum of legal, personal and financial preparations to support and ease the often abrupt transition for families as they deal with end-of-life issues.
Karen Goersch, a panelist and financial advisor with Ameriprise Financial Services Inc. of Westport, knows first-hand how rapidly the condition of a loved one can change. While on his way to a pinochle game, Goersch”™s father suffered a severe stroke that left him hospitalized and unable to sufficiently communicate.
“The weekend before he was clamming on Block Island with one of my sisters and he said to her, ”˜Let me make this very clear to you, if I am ever in diapers you cannot let me live.”™ We were incredibly fortunate to know his wishes,” Goersch said.
With guidance and assurance from a well-organized estate plan and a team of medical professionals, Goersch and her family were able to respect her father”™s explicit wishes and withheld food and drink to end his suffering.
Lisa Randall, a co-owner of the Monroe-based in-home elder care service provider Right at Home, said sudden changes in health are all too common with the elderly.
“There are a lot of people who suddenly get a lot worse very quickly,” she said. “It happens so often that things change quickly.”
Her own father became paralyzed overnight due to an unknown tumor on his spine, that had gone undetected, she said.
“It was so difficult for my family to have my father walking the night before and the next morning couldn”™t feel his legs,” she said. “It was unbelievable.”
Many families find themselves unprepared when such a turn of events arises, said Dr. Kristen Edwards, a specialist in hospice and palliative care at Bridgeport Hospital and panelist.
“Many people don”™t realize that often times those medical decisions need to be made by family members at the very end,” she said. “And if they never have the conversation about what”™s important it puts a very difficult burden of decision making on family. By large people are still waiting too long to have those conversations.”
Edwards said there is still a large need to educate people on the importance of having the difficult conversations around end-of-life care and final wishes.
The two panel discussions are scheduled for April 27 and May 11 at the New Canaan Library”™s Lamb Room from 5 to 7 p.m., including receptions and opportunities to meet the panelists.
In addition to end-of-life issues, the panel will also discuss quality of life topics such as planning for retirement and long-term care and living options for seniors, both of which are have undergone change as more people are living longer and, spending those years in increasingly poor health.
“People are living longer and they are frailer,” said Achenbaum. “They are more at risk of having an accident or incident and they need more care and attention.”
Achenbaum said 75 percent of Staying Put members are beyond 80 years old with 25 percent of clients in their nineties.
At Right at Home, it is not at all uncommon to serve clients in their nineties and even centenarians, said Randall.
Both Achenbaum and Randall have noticed increasing demand for in-home personal elder care services offering the range of help a family member would provide from rides to the grocery store and doctors’ visits to help on the computer and around the home.
But these new clients, many of whom are of the baby boomer generation which began to reach retirement age this decade, have different needs and desires than their parents who grew up in vastly different lifestyles during the Great Depression era.
“A lot of people have chronic illness, high blood pressure, diabetes and they have to live with that a long time,” said Randall. “The baby boomers now, they”™re the Woodstock generation. They were raised differently and with technology they will definitely be living longer.”
“This is the wave of the future,” said Achenbaum. “We have some people who are aging and still very active and healthy and want to stay involved in what is going on in the community. We are going to have to find ways to help people stay safely at home.”
