What Can Be Done by Families to Help the Elderly Plan for Their Future?

A family is a unit of immense possibilities, dreams, wishes, future. Every family will age and with that will require a lot of planning, years before one may ever need help in the form of humans or resources. As a general rule, most families in the world can barely meet two square meals a day…while most have aged being cared for by their families in their own homes… those days may be numbered as people seek out ways out of their territory or domain expertise for various reasons. This is the phenomenon of global aging as we will see in the next few decades. While on one side, more families will unite, on the other more families will be separated. 

Elderly or Aging Planning can come in all dimensions, times, scenarios, and even financial freedoms. It is never too late or too right to talk about this delicate topic and more so often than not, this conversation can turn up hot, ugly, or resentful even in many happy families. 

Here are some ways for families to help their elderly plan for their future:

1.  Have a thorough medical checkup of the elderly.
2. Help them understand their finances through financial programs and resources.
3. Make a list of wishes, wants, needs, haves, and undesired.
4.  Make a list of current resources, or possible future resources in case of an emergency, resources can be in terms of manpower, finances, community support, interests, affiliations, and more.
5. Value the reasons for the designation of DPOA for finances, healthcare, and others
6. Complete a personal will and trust if need be as per the situation. 
7.  Keep a checklist of what the elderly have in terms of assets and so on… in order to draw up some key decisions
8.  Plan according to the age, the conditions, and predictions of possibilities for the future, though that may never turn out the way someone predicted. 
9.  Planning must be done as a way to ease out future pains rather than as a deliberate attempt to clear future problems…
10. Planning must definitely include the related parties and must be done ethically, legally, morally, and respectfully. 
11. Planning must be private, respecting privacy is key in all negotiations and sometimes there is more to deal with too many hands in the pot. 
12. Personalities can clash, but one must be reminded that these are necessary for the best interests of the individual. 
13. Keeping a tab of personal health incidents can be truly helpful even if there be a change in planning for the future, a chronological history is of mighty importance as proof. 
14. An introduction to supports, resources is very helpful even if it may not be the right time.
15. Bringing clarity with legality is nurturing on many occasions.
16. Preparation mentally is key as such conversations can take a very long time sometimes
17. A kind smile, a clap, a soft cue, and a word can be a blessing. 

We have discovered that many more ideas are out there that work. The most key factors are trust, communication, reliability, accuracy, clarity, transparency, and accountability. For no conversations are easy and a lot of elderly in the world end up being homeless or discarded due to poor or improper planning or execution of such. I have seen many many such in my first company. Many times the fault never lay within one framework but in the entangled web of our lives.

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