Carolina Care Council

For our purposes, an aging senior is someone facing his or her remaining years of life. Perhaps because of frailty or poor health or simply advanced age, this person is anticipating the end-of-life. When supporting aging seniors, we are no longer interested in accumulating wealth or planning for meaningful retirement lifestyles in senior living arrangements. We are interested at this point in preserving what assets are left and possibly passing them on to the next generation. We are concerned about reducing debt and maintaining adequate income. We are concerned about the need for long term care and the interaction of family members in providing that care. For those seniors who want to remain at home, we must provide the services and support necessary to allow them to age in place. For those seniors who cannot remain at home, we are concerned about a senior living arrangement that provides care support and supervision at the right cost. We are also concerned about proper legal documents and for preparations for the end-of-life such as death, funerals and burials. In addition, we are concerned about health issues and medical treatment and government programs to support health care and long term care.

Seniors are the fastest-growing segment of the population, not only in the United States, but in the world. Individuals age 65 and over represent 16.9% % of our national population – about 56 million people in 2020 – but this will grow to 22% – 85.7 million – in just a matter of 30 years. The majority of this growing population of aging Americans have a number of goals or standards of living they anticipate on maintaining during their retirement years. Many surveys point out that among the more important goals are the following:

Unfortunately, the loss of one or more of these important goals or standards of living is often one of the most challenging issues facing all seniors. It is important that all of us should plan for this stage of our lives. Unfortunately, healthy, active seniors ignore the type of planning needed to deal with the final years. In addition, this need for planning often remains hidden from family or other supporters of aging loved ones unless precipitated by some unanticipated event befalling the aging senior, which in turn typically uncovers one or more of the deficiencies listed below.

For whatever reason, seniors themselves and typically their families or supporters try to ignore the need for seeking expert help and for planning for the final years. It is often a crisis such as a fall, the inability to pay for services, a need for medical care, hospitalization or a sudden illness or some other precipitating event that results in action being taken. Even though the standard of living and the health and financial well-being of the aging senior has been deteriorating for years, by the time an unexpected event lifts the curtain on what has been happening it is often too late to do much to mitigate the eventual outcome. Assets are already depleted, interventions have not been pursued and the family is not ready to accept responsibility for oversight and care. As a result, supporters of aging seniors are now operating in crisis mode. Even at this stage, planning assistance with this crisis is readily available and often possible.

Our goal is to help families uncover the need for assistance or advice with critical aging issues. Our team has the experience and knowledge to help families and even provide some of the services. If our collaborative effort cannot match a difficult or challenging aging issue, we maintain a wider network of trusted providers or advisors who can step in and help.