- Do you understand the financial burden of LTC?
- Do you know which options are available and the optimal age to fund LTC coverage?
- Do you understand how and when to file a LTC claim?
LTC is the assistance required for a chronic illness or disability that leaves you unable to care for yourself for an extended time. You are defined as “chronically ill” if it is expected that for at least 90 days you will be unable to perform two out of six activities of daily living (ADL’s) without substantial assistance as defined below or you have a “severe cognitive impairment” such as Alzheimer’s or dementia that makes you a threat to yourself or others
Activities of daily living (ADL)
1. Transferring: The ability to get into or out of a bed, chair, wheelchair etc.
2. Toileting: Getting on or off a toilet and performing associated personal hygiene.
3. Bathing: Getting into or out of a tub or shower and wash your body and hair.
4. Dressing: Being able to dress and undress yourself and manage buttons and fas- teners.
5. Eating: Being able to feed yourself by getting food into your mouth using hands or utensils.
6. Continence: Maintaining control of your bladder or bowel.
There are two types of LTC; Skilled, which requires a trained professional such as with wound care or injections and Custodial, which can usually be done by a family member or nurses’ aide and involves help with ADL’s and homemaker services.
It is often said that unless you have experienced LTC personally such as taking care of an aging parent, you cannot appreciate the difficulty of the task of being a caregiver.