Article Review: Protecting Your Parents

     Strategies for helping us and our parent’s age safely and well are sometimes found in odd places. Recently, my daughter showed me the June 2011 issue of Money magazine. It contained 2 articles relevant to adult children who care about their parents and want to help them age as independently as possible.

     The first article, Money Management, offered basic information as well as realistic, easily implemented suggestions at three different phases. Since people age differently, one or all of these stages may be relevant to your family situation. First the article identified early signs that a parent may need help with financial matters and offered a suggestion or two to help make financial management a bit easier for your parents. Second, the article suggested ways to start becoming involved in your parent’s finances while they are still able manage their finances independently. Finally, they discussed how to gracefully step in when parents need help making financial decisions. Interestingly, some of the best advice was a sidebar listing and briefly describing legal documents that may be needed for an adult child to act on their parent’s behalf:

• Durable power of attorney
• Health-care proxy
• HIPPA form
• Will and revocable trust

You can read the article online at: http://money.cnn.com/2011/05/25/retirement/helping-aging-parents.moneymag/index.htm

     The second article, Tech, described a few new innovations in three areas of concern for elder adults: managing medications, falls, and monitoring health problems. While not an inclusive or comprehensive listing, it’s nevertheless interesting to see what new gadgets are available and to know that there are potential solutions to problems many of us consider unsolvable.

You can read the article online at: http://money.cnn.com/2011/05/25/retirement/keeping-parents-safe.moneymag/index.htm?iid=EAL