The financial risks of dementia
Dementia covers a broad range of mental diseases that cause a gradual decrease in the ability to think and remember. It often affects a person’s daily functioning and is different from the decline in cognitive abilities that are the usual effects of aging. The most common type of dementia is Alzheimer’s disease.
About one in ten people get dementia. It becomes more common with age and it’s estimated that about half of those over age 85 suffer from it in some degree.
As the disease progresses, most people with dementia require a certain amount of skilled care. Eventually the family will not be able to provide the 24 hour services that the patient requires and they will be placed in a facility designed to provide that care.
According to the NY Times:
On average, the out-of-pocket cost for a patient with dementia was $61,522 — more than 80 percent higher than the cost for someone with heart disease or cancer. The reason is that dementia patients need caregivers to watch them, help with basic activities like eating, dressing and bathing, and provide constant supervision to make sure they do not wander off or harm themselves. None of those costs were covered by Medicare.
For many families, the cost of caring for a dementia patient often “consumed almost their entire household wealth,” said Dr. Amy S. Kelley, a geriatrician at Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai in New York and the lead author of a paper published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
As people age their cognitive abilities deteriorate. Even before they begin to suffer the effects of dementia, they may become forgetful or lose the ability to focus on their finances. Obtaining the services of a Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) well before this happens – a fiduciary that puts his clients’ interests first – is vital. And, as people prepare retirement plans, the cost of dementia treatment and care should be one of the things for which they plan.
