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LONG-TERM
CARE INSURANCE
Feature
Consumer Help:
Why
Buy Long-Term Care Insurance?
A nursing home is not the most desirable place to finish out one's life. For many, a terminal stay in a nursing facility robs them of a purpose in life and strips away their dignity. As an example, have you ever thought of the indignity of being bathed, toiletted or diapered in a nursing home environment? No wonder many people express the desire to die before ever having to go into a nursing
home. For some conditions a nursing home is the only alternative, but for many long-term care patients there are more options than nursing homes.
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Complete Featured Article Online
Compare Options: Long-Term
Care Insurance Quote
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What
Is Long-Term Care Insurance? |
Long-term care refers to a broad range of supportive medical, personal and social services needed by people who are unable to meet their basic living needs for an extended period of time. This may be caused by accident, illness or frailty. Such conditions include the inability to move about, dress, bathe, eat, use a toilet, medicate and avoid incontinence. Also care may be needed to help the disabled with household cleaning, preparing meals, shopping, paying bills, visiting the doctor, answering the phone and taking medications. Additional long-term care disabilities are due to cognitive impairment from stroke, depression, dementia, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and so on.
Long-term care requires a healthy person to provide support for the disabled person. This support can be offered at home or in an institution. As a rule, those who are disabled prefer to stay at home and most of the time so-called informal care givers (family and friends) prefer the home as well, but the deciding factor of where to receive help ultimately centers on the nature of the disability.
For example, a wife caring for her overweight husband may be unable to help him bathe, dress, use the toilet or even transfer from the bed to a chair. She will either have to hire aides to come to the home or put him in an institution. Another example might be an Alzheimer's patient who has become unmanageable and must receive constant supervision. This may be impossible at home and an Alzheimer's facility may be the only
solution.
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