Category Archives: Incapacity Planning
How to Choose a Conservator for Yourself
Every day we make hundreds of decisions for ourselves—from what to eat for breakfast to where to vacation. However, what happens if you cannot make decisions for yourself? Who do you want making day-to-day decisions on your behalf and serving as your conservator? If you have recently created or reviewed your estate plan, you… Read More »
What to Do When a Disability Throws Your Estate Plan into Chaos
As poet Robert Burns mused centuries ago, the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry. Despite thoughtful effort and a concerted strategy, you cannot prepare for every emergency in life. A car accident, sudden illness, workplace injury, or chronic medical condition can force you to reevaluate the core assumptions you used to… Read More »
Should the Trustee of My Trust Be Different During My Incapacity Than at My Death?
When you create a trust, choosing a trustee is one of the most important decisions you will make. If you create a revocable living trust—that is, a trust that you establish during your lifetime and can revoke or amend—you may opt to act as trustee for your trust, retaining the full control over and… Read More »
Springing Financial Power of Attorney
Estate planning is about more than preparing for the inevitable. A good estate plan should also consider the unexpected. Your plan may have detailed instructions for what happens when you are no longer around, but what if something goes wrong while you are alive? If you can no longer manage your affairs, you will… Read More »
New Blood Test For Alzheimer’s May Detect the Disease Years Before Onset of Symptoms
Alzheimer’s disease is becoming more prevalent among aging Americans, and there are more aging Americans than ever before. Alzheimer’s disease has three typical biomarkers: plaques of beta-amyloid protein, tangles of tau protein, and loss of connections in the synapses that communicate information between brain cells. Now a simple blood test for Alzheimer’s may be able… Read More »
Dementia and its Effect on a Marriage (UPDATED: August 2019)
(Columbia, MD) When someone you love, in particular – your spouse – becomes ill, you want to help them get well. But what happens when the illness is dementia? A marital relationship that could have spanned years or decades becomes subject to enormous change, and that change is not a slow linear progression of… Read More »
Alzheimer’s Disease 101: What You Need to Know to Be Prepared
(Updated November 2021) November is Alzheimer’s Disease Awareness Month. In 1983, then-President Ronald Reagan made November the designated month for National Alzheimer’s Disease Awareness Month. Then fewer than 2 million Americans were diagnosed with this devastating illness that then and now destroys the lives of the people diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and the families who… Read More »
