Devoted daughter seeks help when caring for her mother becomes too much
Miriam Sabir reveals how a nursing home in Holladay, Utah, is coping with caring for her elderly mother, Connie.
I’m 28 years old, and I was recently told that I have 58 years left to live independently.
Apparently, when I turn 86, I may need long-term care. It also costs money. Even if it’s over $10 million. oh yeah.
Waterlily, a new AI tool that predicts long-term care needs, asked me a few questions, such as “How many siblings do you have?” and crunched the numbers in seconds. “Over the past five years, on average, how many alcoholic drinks have you consumed per month?”
I have two sisters and we like to have a glass or two of wine on the weekends. I shared my zip code (I live in Cincinnati, Ohio), my estimated net worth (I used the median net worth for those under 35, $39,000, from the Federal Reserve Consumer Finance Survey), my height (5’0”), and my weight (which is not relevant to you, my readers).
Users can also share other information, such as details about their medical history, their care preferences, and whether they have already made a will. It’s free, but you’ll need to meet with an advisor or care professional to access your results. This algorithm typically predicts outcomes for users over the age of 40.
Lily Vittayarukskul, Waterlily’s CEO and founder, said to me, “You may be the youngest person to actually use our system,” before we even started reviewing my results.
The algorithm predicted that there was an almost 1 in 5 chance that you would end up in long-term care where you would be unable to care for yourself. If that happens, Suiren predicts that I will be around 86 years old and will need assistance with things like bathing, eating, and dressing for about 5 years, starting with 15 hours of care per week and ending with about 35 hours of care per week. Adjusted for inflation, this would cost about $10 million over five years. Mr. Vittayarkuskul showed me how the cost of care can increase or decrease depending on the type of care I choose, whether I want to stay at home or go to a facility, and how my current savings plan can offset those costs in the future.
After that, I will either die or recover until the next long-term care event occurs. What a comfort!
“This is not a crystal ball,” Vittayarkuskul said. “But it’s the best we have.”
Most people find out they need care sooner than expected, and loved ones are often left scrambling to make plans. A recent report from A Place for Mom, a senior housing search platform, found that more than half of the 1,000 family caregivers surveyed wish they had started planning for long-term care sooner, and 88% said their families needed more guidance and support to understand their options.
It is certainly too early to start preparing for my own care. Well, my parents haven’t retired yet. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned from covering long-term care for USA TODAY, it’s that planning is essential.
“I’m already preparing for my children,” said General Julia Beck, founder of the care consultant group It’s Working Project. “It’s not necessarily a progressive disease. There are some diseases that can happen to anyone at any time, such as a heart attack or an accident.”
Why planning for long-term care is important
Every day, more than 11,000 people turn 65. People this age are less confident about what their later years will look like, said Jason Fichtner, a fellow at the Stanford Economic Policy Institute and executive director of the LIMRA Retirement Income Research Institute. And even when financial professionals try to talk about long-term care scenarios, survey data shows that the conversation is not pervasive.
According to data from an Alliance survey of nearly 3,500 consumers ages 45 to 75, 96% of financial professionals say they discuss physical health issues with clients, but only 44% of clients remember those conversations. And fewer than one-third of respondents remember their financial advisor discussing cognitive decline.
Financial planners aren’t the only ones trying to talk pointlessly about caring for the elderly. Adult children struggle to have the same conversations with their parents.
“Your parents aren’t interested in talking about their deaths. Why would they do that?” Beck said. “The hardest part of that conversation is literally getting to the point where the parents are willing to sit down and talk about it with you.”
The goal is to give people as much control over their aging process as possible, Beck said. And that control is made possible by talking about how people want to be cared for, including where they want to be, who they want to help them, and what lifestyle factors are most important to them.
Financial advisor Frank Fantozzi has created a Care Planning Guide on how to have these conversations. She said it’s important to start a dialogue so families don’t make their most important decisions at the most stressful moments. “Don’t be afraid to talk about it,” Fantozzi said.
“My mother is very independent,” he said. “It must have been her idea.”
Fantozzi’s guide is full of tips to help frame the conversation around distant hypotheticals rather than immediate needs. That’s the key to managing potentially hurt feelings and egos among aging parents, Beck says.
“The further away that moment is, the better,” she said.
$10 million is a daunting number, but financial advisors say there’s no need to worry.
There are a lot of things Water Lily doesn’t know about me that could affect my longevity, like my activity level (sure, I spend most of the day sitting at my computer reporting and writing articles, but I ran my first marathon last October and teach yoga at a local studio) and my social connections (I’m lucky to have a lot of love among my friends and family in my life).
And there’s a lot that can change between now and my golden years. Suiren asked me if I had any children, but I didn’t have any. However, I would like to become a mother someday.
Would I want my children to help take care of me in my old age? That’s a question for 80-year-old Madeline.
Vittayarkuskul suggests using this algorithm again after more than 10 years, when my life stage has changed. That might yield more accurate results, she said.
In the meantime, I have a daunting $10 million to save.
In today’s dollars, that’s just under $400,000. Fantozzi said it’s difficult to relate future dollars. “When it gets too unrealistic, people just check out.”
Mr. Fichtner told me to ignore the big numbers for now and start saving in general for eventual retirement. You want to live a little bit between your report date and your long-term care event, right? That’s (hopefully) about 20 years worth of retirement savings before you hand over another $10 million for long-term care.
“I don’t worry about that,” Fichtner said. “Start saving today, plan accordingly, and start making changes as you get closer to your goal.”
Madeline Mitchell’s role covering women and the care economy for USA TODAY is supported by partnerships such as: extremely important and Journalism funding partners. Funders do not provide editorial input.
Contact Madeline at: memitchell@usatoday.com and @maddiemitch_ With X.
