Six years in a care home can cost more than raising a child: Typical bill of £230,000 means one in three over 55s are resigned to selling their home to pay the bill

The price of a parent’s care home place can cost more than bringing up a child, families were warned yesterday.

Raising a son or daughter to the age of 21 and putting them through school and university typically costs just over £230,000, a report said.

But the same amount would buy just six years’ residency in a care home for an elderly and vulnerable parent.

The report said that almost a third of adults over 55 have no idea how they would pay bills on that scale, and that nearly one in five are resigned to selling their homes to pay fees.

It comes at a time of continued uncertainty following the failure of Theresa May’s election campaign.

She planned to make those with assets of more than £100,000 liable for paying all bills – which jarred with those who preferred the £72,000 care costs cap put forward by David Cameron but never implemented.

Until new policies are produced it remains the case that anyone with savings and property in England will have to pay for their own place until their assets are reduced to £23,250. Many are forced to sell their homes to meet the costs.

Yesterday’s report put the average price of a place in an English care home at £694 a week – a level broadly in line with other estimates, although prices are higher in the South of England than in the North. It said that if a family had to pay for a place for ten years, the cost would be around £360,000.

Tom Lyon, of uSwitch, said families who do not have their affairs in order and are unable to access Government support could be facing a future of crippling debt

But, it said, a poll found that an average person put the likely bill at £283,000.

On an annual basis, the report said, the real cost of a place is £36,088 but typically people believe it is £28,358.

Meanwhile the estimated average cost of bringing up a child is just under £232,000, including the price of a university education. In practice, the insurance industry calculates that a typical stay in a care home lasts just two-and-a-half years – and that bills are likely to amount to between £50,000 and £90,000. But that sum is still a quarter of the value of an average home.

The poll of 2,006 people, carried out for price comparison site uSwitch, found that three quarters – 76 per cent – of younger people expect their parents to meet their own care home bills, while some 19 per cent expect to have to sell their houses to pay for care.

Some 30 per cent do not know how they would cover the fees.

Tom Lyon, of uSwitch, said: ‘These findings show how unprepared we are when it comes to funding the care for our elderly parents. It is a sobering thought that it could now cost more to look after an elderly parent than to raise a child, adding extra pressure on families when household budgets are already squeezed.

‘Families who do not have their affairs in order and are unable to access Government support could be facing a future of crippling debt.’

Caroline Abrahams, of Age UK, said: ‘Not many of us can afford to save enough from our wages or salary to cover the cost of a risk that may never materialise.’ She added: ‘This Government must urgently create a fair and sustainable system ... so that we can all face the future with confidence.’

SOURCE: MailOnline, Steve Doughty

If you know someone with a dementia, don’t be a stranger.

Some people with a dementia find that after their diagnosis friends and acquaintances may not visit as much or even lose contact.

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Often this is because people don’t know very much about dementia, don’t feel confident about how to communicate with someone with a dementia or are afraid they might be intruding.

But keeping in contact is important for someone with dementia and can make all the difference to them.

Life doesn't end when dementia begins and someone with a dementia can live well for a long time after their diagnosis, especially if they have a good support network.

Evelyn and Jean who feature in the recent ‘Still Me’ campaign are lifelong friends. Evelyn’s diagnosis hasn’t changed that and just as before her diagnosis, Evelyn loves catching up with her friend Jean, going for coffee, enjoying day trips and music.

If you have a friend or family member with a dementia diagnosis, support them by keeping in contact and continuing with the hobbies, activities and pastimes that they’ve always enjoyed.

Danny Brown and his son Danny also feature in the ‘Still Me’ campaign. Danny is very proud of how his dad has dealt with his dementia diagnosis, particularly his positive attitude to life. Danny supports his dad and the two enjoy spending time together.

I just love the garden! In the summer I've been in the garden some mornings at seven o'clock right up until half ten at night.

Danny is aware of the stigma attached to dementia, but is thankful of the care and support he has every day.

Yes you can fear it, but you've got to encompass it. There are a lot of people out there tripping over themselves to help you.

SOURCE:Belfast Telegraph

Clearing the fog of dementia with song

Music’s ability to trigger our deepest memories and emotions could help improve quality of life for people with dementia

Anyone who’s known a loved one with dementia can testify to its cruelty – the frustration, anger and sadness that comes from watching someone you love slip away.

Dementia, the umbrella term for conditions with a severe decline in mental function, can be an incredibly painful experience, marked by confusion, distress and a profound sense of loss. It’s also increasingly common. Dementia is now the second leading cause of death in Australia.

There is no cure, but researchers, including Professor Felicity Baker, co-director of the University of Melbourne’s National Music Therapy Research Unit, are looking for new ways to help people cope.

Professor Baker studies how music, especially singing and songwriting, can be used to treat people with a range of conditions – from young people with traumatic brain injuries to adults with substance abuse issues. She says music therapy can be a way for people living with dementia  and their carers – to deal with its symptoms.

 “We know that managing dementia with medication actually can make people more confused,” she says. “We need to be creative in finding ways that people with dementia can manage the challenges they face, and to address distressing symptoms such as agitation and depression.”

Professor Baker recently developed a songwriting program for people living with dementia and their carers at Caladenia, a care centre based in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs. Participants worked together in small groups to write and compose songs with a music therapist.

In one 10-week session, participants wrote seven songs. They sang about family, cruise ship holidays and staying out until the sun comes up. They thought about, talked about and even argued about songs they created, from the lyrics to the musical direction.

Even participants who normally struggle with conversation and interaction were able to work together on a music project.

“With music, they’re really engaged in a way that they’re not in other activities,” says Professor Baker. “They’re offering their ideas and perspectives. They’re happy to argue with each other about what they think the lyrics should be and whether the lyric fits the melody.”

But what really struck Professor Baker was that participants remembered the music they created.

“There’s this assumption that people with dementia can’t learn, that they’re just losing memories,” says Professor Baker. “But what we found is that they were actually remembering lyrics from week to week.”

Professor Baker’s findings will be used to inform her next project, a large-scale study funded by a grant from the National Health and Medical Research Council. She hopes to find out more about how collaborative music therapy, such as group music therapy or choir groups, might affect the cognitive function, depression, neurological symptoms and quality of life of people with the condition.

The project will include a major randomised control trial, comparing standard dementia care practices with three music-based interventions – group music therapy, larger choir groups and a combination of both.

There’s no doubt that music is a huge part of our lives. The simple act of listening to a song can evoke memories and emotions of heartbreak, love affairs, places or people in our past. And scientists, too, have long known that music has a powerful effect on brain function.

Unlike other stimulants, Professor Baker says, music engages all parts of our brain.

“When we engage in some activities, specific neural networks are activated. But when we listen to music, we actually engage quite a distributed network of neuronal activity.”

Professor Baker was struck by how residents at Caladenia Dementia Care could remember the lyrics they wrote to songs from week to week. Picture: Supplied

Studies have also shown that the act of creating music – songwriting, singing or playing an instrument – is more effective in stimulating our brain than just listening to music. In other words, it’s more stimulating to write and sing a song than listen to your favourite album.

“When we sing, we’re stimulating our auditory system, we’re stimulating our physical system,” she says. “When we use language in song, it’s tapping into our emotions and it’s tapping into physiological processes like our heart rate and our breathing.”

Since music is an emotional and physical stimulant, Professor Baker wants to see how much it can trigger memory function for people living with dementia.

“The theory is that pairing music and lyrics with an emotional experience can reach the threshold for memory,” she says. “It connects people and helps them to remember.”

A 2009 study by the University of California, Davis, for example, found that the area of the brain that holds our memories and links music to emotions is also the last part of the brain to atrophy during Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia.

Professor Baker’s research project is the Australian arm of a much larger study into the effects of music therapy on people living with dementia. Work in Australia will involve 500 participants, but academic colleagues in Norway are leading similar and even larger initiatives.

“It’s going to be the biggest music therapy study in dementia care ever and it’s certainly a game-changer for the dementia field,” she says.

Previous literary reviews about the effects of music therapy have been promising but inconclusive, citing the need for larger studies and more evidence.

“Worldwide, we have amassed a lot of small scale studies that show it’s effective but nothing big that will help us be taken more seriously when healthcare policies are being made.”

The NHMRC grant used to fund Professor Baker’s research is part of the Boosting Dementia Research Initiative, which gives $200 million to dementia research projects, including several other studies based at the University of Melbourne. Nearly 1 million Australians are expected to have dementia by 2050, and health policymakers are wondering how the system will deal with it.

“Dementia is going to be a challenge for this country,” says Professor Baker. “And they want to invest extra funding into projects that will help us with this massive problem that’s ahead of us.”

SOURCE: Kate Stanton, University of Melbourne