A few facts about Alzheimer’s Dementia (AD):
· People currently live for up to 20 years
after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Dementia
· Over 5 million people in the US are currently
diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Dementia
· No two people experience the disease in the
same way
· There is no cure. The diagnosis of Alzheimer’s
Dementia is a terminal diagnosis.
Mrs. R is 82 years old and was recently
diagnosed with Alzheimer's Dementia (AD). She lives with her husband and has 2
adult daughters who live nearby. They are in your office wanting to talk
about making long term care plans and write advanced directives for her and Mr.
R. There’s a lot to talk about and making sure everything is covered is a
daunting task. Legal Nurse Consultants can help.
The top THREE ways a legal nurse consultant
can help:
- Legal Nurse
Consultants can provide life care planning services. Some Legal
Nurse Consultants are Life Care Planners, others can locate an appropriate
Life Care Planner.
Life Care
Planners are specialists who not only help determine the cost of care, but help
develop a plan to use resources wisely so that the resources last the rest of
Mrs. R’s life and that no one is bankrupt at the end of Mrs. R’s life.
Mrs. R
has a progressive disease and will require more care as time goes on. Knowing
what the costs are going to be will allow Mrs. R’s family to make appropriate
choices regarding Mrs. R’s care
2.
Legal Nurse Consultants can help assess Mrs.
R’s ability to participate in deciding her long-term care.
Dementia,
all types of dementia, affects all people differently, and we don't understand
much if anything about the disease process. But we do understand that it is
possible to be totally aware of the situation around you but not remember what
day it is or where you are exactly.
A legal
nurse consultant will help you locate expert neurologists. Expert neurologists
can help Mrs. R’s legal documents stand up in court if someone decides to say
that Mrs. R was too confused to participate in the decision process.
A legal
nurse consultant can even attend the visit with Mrs. R to ensure that the
neurologist does a full mental status exam, and inform you if they do not.
3.
Legal Nurse Consultants can guide Mrs. R’s
family through the difficult medical decisions.
Legal
Nurse Consultants have both personal and professional experience with those end
of life decisions and the appropriate legal nurse consultant can guide families
through the difficult decisions that they need to make.
They can
help the family understand what the different options are, why they benefit
from both a living will and a MOLST form, or even what a MOLST form is.
Contact us today to help ensure that your
clients are extremely satisfied and refer their friends and family to your practice
for all their legal needs.
