If you, your spouse, your parent or another loved one is experiencing dementia or Alzheimer’s disease, you probably already know how difficult it can be managing the medical, emotional and family aspects. But one thing that can make things easier for family members is to get your legal and financial affairs in order. A crucial part of this is making sure your estate plan is up to date.
Often, when a family member is diagnosed with a progressive neurological illness like dementia, we recommend changes to that person’s estate plan, as well as their spouse’s estate plan. If the person with dementia is still fairly healthy, it’s important to make those changes now. If they lose capacity to understand documents like a will or power of attorney in the future, then by that point it may be too late to make changes.
We often recommend that spouses make new wills that leave the minimum amount by law to the spouse with dementia, which is called the elective share in New Jersey, and the remainder to children or other beneficiaries, to try to reduce amounts that may have to be spent on long term care or other medical care. We also often recommend that powers of attorney, advance directives for healthcare and executor appointments be updated so that the person with dementia isn’t serving in these roles, as they may no longer be able to do so in the future. In addition, it’s important for the person with dementia to make these documents, to appoint loved ones to make medical, financial and legal decisions if the person cannot do so.
Having a loved one with dementia is a very difficult situation, but getting your legal affairs in order with an estate plan that meets the moment is an important step to make things easier for your family. At FriedmanLaw, we have decades of experience updating wills, powers of attorney, advance directives for healthcare, trusts, and other estate planning documents for people with dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, or other concerns regarding elder law, long term care and Medicaid. If you have questions about this area of law, please call or email us today.