Las Vegas, Nevada law firm Origins Legal Group says that local caregivers, usually female, of dementia and Alzheimer’s patients often risk their own financial futures caring for a loved one. Jennifer Salem, co-founder of the firm, says caregivers often do not know that they have special legal protections available to them.
“We speak to caregivers all the time who have accepted that caring for a loved one means being impoverished in the future,” said Salem. “It does not have to be that way, but many times they are resigned to it. Usually caregivers, which are more often women, are only hearing it for the first time when they meet with us.”
The Kaiser Family Foundation reports that most of the 37 billion hours of unpaid care given in the United States annually is provided by a woman over the age of 50 who also holds a full-time job.
AARP places a value of $470 billion (2013), which is almost as much as the federal government spent on Medicaid, the primary payer of long-term care, in its entirety during 2014 ($496 billion).
These facts highlight the importance of this unseen and growing workforce on our nation’s economy, for whom there are few advocates today, said Salem.
Origins Legal Group is a woman-owned law firm in Las Vegas, Nevada, which advocates for caregivers by safeguarding their income and assets from an expensive, long illness of a loved one. Middle class families stand to gain the most from their services. More information and a free, information e-mail series can be found at www.OriginsLegalGroup.com or by calling (702) 850-7799.
