Helping Aging Parents Who Want to Remain at Home

As a recent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report predicted a doubling of nursing home and other long-term care costs, the National Association of Professional Geriatric Care Managers (NAPGCM) released the results of a survey of 335 aging experts that provides advice to families to help them keep aging parents in their own homes and prevent premature placement in a nursing home.

The CBO report found that the share of the nation’s economy directed to the costs of nursing home and other long-term care services could more than double by the year 2050 due to the aging of the population and a corresponding surge in seniors with physical and cognitive impairments. The CBO report said that total spending for these services reached $192 billion in 2011, accounting for 1.3 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) and could jump to up to 3.3 percent of GDP by 2050.

With the aging of the U.S. population, confronting the need for nursing home care is an increasingly common challenge for families. According to a 2010 Kaiser Family Foundation study, over 1.3 million Americans currently reside in nursing homes. A 2012 Ohio State University report found that a majority (52 percent) of women and a third (32 percent) of men will spend time in a nursing home at some point in their lives.

In our next blog post, we will offer tips from geriatric care managers on ways to help your parents meet their goals of remaining at home, while living safe and healthy lives.

Source: National Association of Professional Geriatric Care Managers (NAPGCM). Geriatric care managers are professionals who have extensive training and experience working with older people, people with disabilities and families who need assistance with caregiving issues. To learn more, visit the NAPGCM website (www.caremanager.org).

Source: Assisting Hands® in association with IlluminAge, © IlluminAge 2015.