Checking in with Aging Loved Ones Over The Holiday Season

Hooper Law Office Attorneys Justin Randall and Collin Mettelka make an appearance on WBAY's Local 5 Live to discuss how families can take advantage of the holiday season to look for signs your aging loved one is struggling with intellectual changes. In this video, we explore meaningful ways to connect with seniors during this special time of year.

Lisa Malak
Welcome back to Local Five Live. Getting together with family over the holidays. It's a really good time to kind of keep an eye out. For some indications, you may need to update your Estate Plan.

Millaine Wells
It is today's topic with Cooper Law Office attorneys Justin and Colin joining us. Nice to see you both guys.

Millaine Wells
What are some of those key signs that we might want to watch for during the holidays that could indicate a loved one is maybe declining a bit?

Justin Randall
Yeah. So there's a few different things that people might want to take a look, or take a look out for rather. One of the biggest things that you can look for is changes in memory. So a lot of people look at things like dementia, Alzheimer's as somebody's having a bad memory, but that's not always the case.

Justin Randall
Some people just have never had a really good memory. So it's changes in memory. Things like, could mom not remember the recipes that she could always remember off the top of her head? Are they forgetting, names or things that they've always remembered in the past? So it's those changes you want to take a look for. And then also in terms of just cleanliness of the house, is there changes there?

Justin Randall
Are they having hygiene issues that they didn't have in the past? So changes I think are the big key terms change.

Lisa Malak
Yeah. All right. So what do we do if we notice some of these changes?

Collin Mettelka
Well, you know, one thing that you can do is, there's a lot of resources out there. If you have, you know, maybe an indication that something is changing, like your local address. So most counties are going to have a spot for you at the address where you can go and gather resources to help you with that.

Collin Mettelka
Otherwise, you know, if you have a relationship with the person's doctor, maybe reaching out to that doctor to see if they have any suggestions or things they can help, or if you're comfortable speaking with the person about it, may be encouraging them to, you know, speak to the doctor about some of the things that are happening.

Millaine Wells
Do you have any tips to approach these sensitive conversations? If we do notice this without causing as much tension or stress?

Justin Randall
Yeah, obviously that's the hard part, right? Nobody wants to upset the person because they're there to help. And I think that's the key way of approaching it is saying, you know, we want to make sure that we have the right resources in place for you. Oftentimes it can be framed as a way if we want to make sure that you can stay at home as long as possible and maybe find some resources there to help you with that.

Justin Randall
So it's not about taking that control away from somebody. It's about keeping as much control with them as you possibly can.

Lisa Malak
So how then, can either an Estate Plan or a Long-Term Care Plan help us make sure those things that Justin just talked about can happen?

Collin Mettelka
So, you know, first of all, the laying the foundation of having good, documents like, Financial Power of Attorney in place to help. If somebody wants you to or needs you to, in the case of memory decline, step into their shoes for, paying bills and doing other financial things that they might do. Having Health Care Powers of Attorney in place so that you can help that person make, health care decisions for themselves or even be able to, you know, find a facility that best suits their needs.

Collin Mettelka
And then as far as, you know, planning in advance, there's certain tools and techniques that can be used to preserve assets if you are planning for the future. But then if you don't have, you know, the luxury of planning for the future, making sure that those documents that I just mentioned, like the Financial Power of Attorney, are in place and they have the types of authorities you want so that your agent can help you in that situation.

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