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Understanding and Seeking the Continuum of Care for Seniors
The Three Components to the Continuum of Care
Many people think their parents are aging in a vacuum, but there’s actually some order to the chaos.
What creates that order is the continuum of care.
The Continuum of Care has three components.
Functional Limitations
The first is the functional limitations line. On that line, the elder ages needing more and more help with things they do every day like cooking, cleaning paying the bills or driving. Then the elder needs more help with things like walking or getting out of bed. Eventually, they need nursing home services like transferring from a bed to a chair or taking care of personal care needs.
Home Sweet Home
The second line on the continuum is what we call the “home sweet home” line. That means that as your parent needs more and more help, they move to the right type of place to provide that help. For example, if they need help with transportation and meal preparation, they can go to an independent living apartment with those services included. If they need help with memory care, they can go to that type of facility to have a supportive environment. As they need more help, they can go to a nursing home. The point is that being aware of the changes as your parent moves along the continuum allows you and our firm to help plan. Also, seeing the changes in real time rather than ignoring them helps you to see the need for help.
The Money Line
The last line is the money line. On that continuum, it is simplest to say that as care needs increase, the costs increase as well. Determining a plan to pay for care as well as to access public and private benefits, can be critical to empowered aging.
The Role of the Elder in the Continuum of Care
Understanding the role of the elder in the Continuum of care is critical to supporting long-term enjoyment of life for individuals with chronic medical conditions and is important for aging adults who may need increasing intervention and treatment. Seniors who need increasing intervention and treatment are concerned about how to pay for that. The team at Kabb Law Firm in Beachwood, Ohio, knows that continuum of care isn’t always as accessible as healthcare providers and governments seem to think. Our team works with families to help them access and plan for appropriate care for loved ones.
What is Continuum of Care?
The continuum of care usually refers to an organized approach to providing the most appropriate healthcare treatment and assistance options at the right time. In the elder care law area, we combine the health care issues and the real-time care costs and public benefits applications to help advocate in both the health care and legal arenas.
For example, someone with Alzheimer’s disease may start out with cognitive impairment and forgetfulness. Then they begin getting lost in the neighborhood. Finally, they may need full-time care because they no longer can feed themselves. Getting help early in the process allows the firm to leverage the time when the person has relatively good health to protect assets and access home care benefits. Ideally, as soon as the client is diagnosed with a condition, they should come to the Kabb Law Firm to start a plan to advocate all the care, legal and financial needs that a life care plan is designed to address.
Treating the elder on the continuum of care works best when the approach is holistic and begins as soon as the least severe symptoms are noticed. Unfortunately, life and the healthcare system don’t always work to your advantage when it comes to a strong continuum of care, especially for seniors.
That’s why the Kabb Elder Law & Care Firm is ready to step in with proven legal advice and assistance.
Continuum of Care Challenges for Seniors
In theory, older adults enter the continuum of care process for aging as they begin to need minor assistance services, such as help making it to appointments or around town. First steps might look like gaining access to transportation services or a cane, for example. They then progress through care stages, perhaps eventually moving into an assisted living community in Northeast Ohio before stepping into a nursing home or memory care facility years later.
The Kabb Law Firm team in Beachwood, Ohio, knows that every person is different, which means every care journey is unique. But we also know that seniors face challenges in accessing the continuum of care, including:
- Financial obstacles
- Lack of information
- Lack of access to proper treatment or services
- Fear or anxiety about the outcome
If you want to break through these barriers for yourself or someone else, contact the Kabb Law Firm for assistance today.
