Quote:
Originally Posted by gemy  Dementia is quite simply devastating on all the family. The wife/husband, daughters/sons, etc.
I believe the stats run something like this 5-8% is the expected rate of the senior population who will end up with dementia of one nature or another. We have a huge % of our population coming into the senior years right now.
In Ontario about 15 yrs ago or so, there was a huge push to build more facilities for assisted living of varying degrees, although the distribution of the facilities may not serve the individual local needs. Luckily for me before both my parents had to go into one of these facilities about 5yrs earlier they had completed 2 new faciities about 5 miles from where I lived.
The numbers are staggering if the pop of USA is 300 mill about 46% is 50+ that means 100 mill or so folks will end up with dementia over the next 30 yrs.
It is a worthy question to ask your local representative how your county/state plans on coping with this. What is/has been put into place to handle these kinds of numbers. |
Gail, it is staggering the number of elderly that are being diagnosed with this and it will only get worse over the next several years.
We are lucky in the fact that when our parents were younger and raising their families, the economy was pretty good, not like it is now. Therefore the majority of them had good job's, good health benifits, good pensions and able to save a bit of money, which was suppose to be there to take care of them so they would not be a finacial burden on their children when they became ill or older or so they could enjoy their retierment. I know most of mom's health benifits have been cut unless we want to pay extra for them, vision, dental which were always free or very low cost, we were lucky that my dad had very good health ins. now my mom pays out of pocket for things she always relied on to keep her healthy. Most all assisted liveing place's are pay out of pocket and the price's are staggering each month, so won't take long for the saving to go. Also the price of meds is awful, especially when they are in the gap on the ins.
Does anyone think about who will care for us when we get older, knowing the state of our economy is in now, our kids are barley able to care for themselves and their families. So many out of jobs or homes being forclosed on, no health benifits ect.
One more thing, does anyone have a sibling that does not help or even visit their parent?