Tips for Hiring Help for Your Senior Parent
January 25, 2010 · Leave a Comment

By Joe Ponepinto
Many seniors who are healthy enough to stay in their homes, rather than move to a care facility or move in with relatives, prefer to remain in an environment that they know and feel comfortable in. But often these seniors need a little help around the house, whether it’s cleaning, doing laundry, or personal care like bathing. If children can’t provide it, then hiring a service or agency may be an option.
Before you or your parent …

Teach Your Parents Well
January 22, 2010 · Leave a Comment

I was taking my 94-year-old Mom out one day and feeling stressed. My job and the caregiving were getting the best of me. When we arrived at our destination, I got out of the car, went around to get her and as always, reached over to unbuckle her seatbelt. In a moment of sheer frustration, I said “Gee Mom, you’d think a college graduate could learn to unbuckle her seatbelt!” We laughed a bit, but she knew my fuse was shortening by …

For most of my life, one of my mother’s outstanding traits was her ability to socialize with others.  She had an ability to start, or add to, a lively conversation on most any subject and a way of making every stranger feel welcome, every person feel important.
Alzheimer’s changed that wonderful behavior and recently she has begun to just chatter, maybe for attention or maybe as an attempt to be her old self.  However, she now interrupts conversations with nonsensical, repetitive, often irrelevant chatter.  Or in the car, she will just …

 Thanks to overzealous regulations, you, the regulators, have planted a time bomb that will explode with    an annihilative force that will eradicate the reverse mortgage industry and perhaps the forward mortgage industry as well. 

The enemy of the people was not the mortgage bankers, mortgage brokers and FDIC Banks, who sold those liar loans that went bad. If truth be told, they were just complying with the demands of the secondary market. It was the unbridled greed of the secondary market s that created the imbecilic, maniacal mania that led …

Sometimes Hospitals Should Be Avoided
January 16, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Submitted by Richard Hetzler
There comes a time, if people live long enough, that hospital admission should be avoided. My mother struggled to maintain her independence into her 90s, tolerating walkers and assisted living only when necessary. Once her life was reduced to a wheelchair and skilled nursing care, she did not consider her life worth living.
While my mother was in assisted living, she appeared happy and mentally alert. After a family reunion for Thanksgiving, she developed a urinary tract infection that …

Sometimes Hospitals Should Be Avoided
January 16, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Submitted by Richard Hetzler
There comes a time, if people live long enough, that hospital admission should be avoided. My mother struggled to maintain her independence into her 90s, tolerating walkers and assisted living only when necessary. Once her life was reduced to a wheelchair and skilled nursing care, she did not consider her life worth living.
While my mother was in assisted living, she appeared happy and mentally alert. After a family reunion for Thanksgiving, she developed a urinary tract infection that …

The forward mortgage and reverse mortgage industries are prosperous in angst and rich in abject despair as it tries to navigate rules and laws that are un-navigable. They create layers of redundant and unnecessary activities  that have no basis in serving the needs of the borrowing customer. The mortgage industry  as a whole, is like the octopus on roller skates-moving in different directions without going anywhere.

Accordingly, the forward mortgage and reverse mortgage industries will collapse from the weight of its own collective detritus. Neither possessed a sufficient enough vision of protecting their …

Does Your Parent Drink Enough Water?
January 12, 2010 · Leave a Comment

This story was contributed by a reader who wishes to remain anonymous. It addresses the importance of hydration in our parents’ overall health & safety. 
On several occasions my sister and I noticed that my Mom’s dementia would get worse. We worried that this was the “beginning of the end” of her mental competency. I recall when she started holding a terrible grudge against one of our favorite caregivers at her Assisted Living Home. The caregiver’s name was Jane, but she …

A decision dated Dec 18, 2009 by New York Supreme Court (the highest court in the state of New York is the Court of Appeals) Judge Charles Thomas appeared in the New York Law Journal on January 8, 2010 (Judge faults lack of counseling to homeowner, saying she lacked capacity to enter into mortgage). The crux of the case involved the attempt of a temporary guardian to vacate a reverse mortgage placed upon the property by Financial Freedom.

The facts, as I understand them, are the following: Ms. Brunson purchased the …

When it was time to move my parents out of their home, I was lucky that my father was still very cognizant, able to help plan and execute the move.  But my mother was a different story.  She has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s three years prior and really didn’t connect with reality.  Though she still knew the family, she had lost grasp on the details of everyday life so what do you tell her?  What would easiest for her?  Did she have a need to say goodbye to her long-time …