5 QUESTIONS TO ASK BEFORE DECIDING ON A NURSING HOME

Most people know estate planning is important, but many put it off because they believe it's something to think about "later." The truth is, estate planning isn't just about deciding what happens to your assets after you're gone, it's about protecting yourself and your loved ones while you're living.A well-prepared estate plan gives you a voice during life's unexpected moments. Documents like a Last Will and Testament, Durable Power of Attorney, Healthcare Power of Attorney, and advance healthcare directives help ensure your wishes are honored if you're ever unable to make decisions for yourself. They also reduce stress and uncertainty for the family members who may suddenly find themselves making difficult choices.Planning ahead also goes hand in hand with home care.As we age or recover from an illness or injury, many people want to remain in the comfort of their own homes for as long as possible. Home care services can provide assistance with personal care, medication reminders, meal preparation, transportation, companionship, and other daily needs that help individuals maintain their independence.When estate planning and home care are considered together, families are better prepared for whatever the future may bring. Having legal documents in place allows trusted individuals to coordinate care, make healthcare decisions, and manage financial matters without unnecessary delays or legal complications. Instead of scrambling during a crisis, families can focus on what matters most, caring for one another.Planning isn't about expecting the worst. It's about creating peace of mind, protecting your independence, and giving your loved ones the confidence to honor your wishes when it matters most.Join Us This Month to Learn MoreIf you've been meaning to start your estate plan or simply want to understand your options, now is the perfect time. Join us at our Aging Well: Planning for the Road Ahead event Thursday, July 30th to learn how estate planning and home care work together to help protect your future. Our team will discuss essential planning documents, answer common questions, and provide practical guidance to help you make informed decisions for yourself and your family.Don't wait for a crisis to start planning. Taking the first step today can make all the difference tomorrow.Reserve your spot today and start planning with confidence.

Protecting the Portfolio and the Person: Five Critical Moves After a Client Is Diagnosed with Dementia A dementia diagnosis changes the nature of the advisory relationship. Before a diagnosis, the focus may be on recognizing subtle changes and cautiously responding. After a diagnosis, it shifts to managing risk, supporting the client, and putting protective structures in place while the client can still participate in decisions. A diagnosis does not mean that a client has lost the ability to make decisions. Capacity is not all-or-nothing. Many clients in the early stages of cognitive decline can still understand and express preferences, even as their abilities begin to change. During this narrow but important window, the advisor can help the client reinforce their plan, clarify intent, and prepare for the possibility of future decline.How Advisors Typically Learn About a Diagnosis In practice, a dementia diagnosis rarely arrives in a formal or uniform way. Advisors usually learn through one of several channels, each requiring a thoughtful response. Direct client disclosure. A client may share a diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or early-stage dementia during a meeting. Practical response: Use this conversation as an opportunity to introduce supported decision making. Ask whom the client would like to involve in future conversations to help ensure continuity and clarity. Notification from a trusted contact or family member. A spouse or adult child may reach out privately with concerns or updates.Practical response: Respect confidentiality boundaries. Use this information to prompt a direct conversation with the client and, where appropriate, confirm or expand permissions to involve others. Activation of a formal planning trigger. In some cases, the advisor becomes aware when a legal trigger is met, such as activation of a power of attorney. Practical response: Carefully follow the procedures outlined in the clients documents. Acting prematurely or without proper authorization can create complications. Observed decline leading to further inquiry. Sometimes, the advisor connects the dots based on behavior and later confirms that the client has received a diagnosis.Practical response: Document observations and consider whether additional professional input (legal or medical) may be appropriate before taking action. An Evolving Advisory Relationship Once a diagnosis is established, the advisors role begins to evolve. You may find yourself balancing multiple priorities at once: supporting the clients independence protecting the client from financial risk coordinating with family members or fiduciaries maintaining appropriate boundaries and documentation In many cases, this balancing act is also the beginning of a transition. Over time, decision making authority may gradually shift toward a power of attorney, a trustee, or another trusted individual. This period allows you to provide support in the following ways: reinforce the clients intent while they can still express it build relationships with future decision-makers reduce the likelihood of confusion or conflict later Making Your Move: Five Postdiagnosis Action ItemsOnce a diagnosis is known, advisors can take practical steps to stabilize and protect both the client and their financial plan. Move to supported decision-making. Encourage the client to involve a trusted individual in meetings as a participant, notetaker, or sounding board to help preserve autonomy while creating continuity and shared understanding. Segment accounts to balance independence and protection. Consider structuring assets in a way that preserves day-to-day independence while limiting exposure to large errorsfor example, maintaining a smaller, accessible account alongside more structured or professionally managed assets. Review fiduciary roles and activation provisions. Revisit powers of attorney, trustees, and successor roles. Clarify whether authority is immediate or springing and ensure that everyone understands how and when transitions occur. Increase automation where appropriate. Implement automated bill pay, required distributions, and deposits. Reducing manual tasks can help prevent missed obligations and lower exposure to fraud or error. Document client intent while it is clear. Capture a clients goals, preferences, and rationale for key decisions. Whether through meeting notes or more formal documentation, this record can provide important clarity if decisions are later questioned. Working Within a Changing Capacity One of the challenges advisors face is that capacity can vary. A client may be fully capable of handling simple financial decisions while struggling with more complex ones. That variability requires judgment: knowing when to simplify, when to slow down, and when to involve others. Advisors rarely get to see the full picture. But even within limited interactions, consistent processes and clear documentation can help ensure that decisions remain aligned with the clients best interests. Planning for What Comes Next A dementia diagnosis does not create an immediate endpoint, but it does signal that an advisory relationship will continue to evolve. Over time, there may be a greater need to rely on agents under powers of attorney, trustees, family members, or other fiduciaries. Preparing for that transition early, while the client can still participate, can make the process smoother for everyone involved. For advisors, the goal is not to take control but to create structure, preserve intent, and support the client through a changing set of circumstances.

At some point, most advisors will work with clients who experience cognitive decline. The challenge is that these changes rarely become obvious all at once. They tend to emerge graduallysubtle at first and easy to explain away. A missed detail here, a repeated question there. On their own, these moments may seem insignificant. But over time, patterns can form and, in a financial context, those patterns matter. A client experiencing cognitive decline may still be making financial decisions, sometimes with consequences that are inconsistent with their long-term goals or past behavior. Recognizing and responding to those changes is not just a matter of client service; it is part of sound advisory practice. What Advisors May Notice Early cognitive changes can be difficult to identify with certainty. Clients may have off days, periods of stress, or temporary distractions that affect their focus and memory. That ambiguity is what makes early decline easy to overlook. At the same time, advisors are in a unique position. You see clients over time, often with a long term perspective on their financial decisions, habits, and communication style. That context can make subtle changes more noticeable. These are some practical signs to watch for in client meetings Short-term memory issues. Repeating the same questions or stories within a single meeting or forgetting decisions made earlier in the conversation Language and word-finding difficulty. Struggling to recall common terms or relying on vague descriptions for familiar accounts or concepts Comprehension challenges. Requiring repeated explanations or being unable to paraphrase a simple concept after it has been discussed Reduced mental flexibility. A new reluctance to consider alternatives or decisions that appear unusually rigid or inconsistent with prior behavior No single indicator is definitive. But when patterns emerge, they may warrant closer attention. Why Early Recognition Matters When cognitive changes begin to affect financial decision-making, the risks extend beyond a single transaction. A client may request unusually large withdrawals; make abrupt changes to beneficiaries or long-term strategies; react emotionally to market events in ways that differ from past behavior; or 1Am. Bar Assn Commn on L. and Aging & Am. Psych. Assn, Assessment of Older Adults with Diminished Capacity: Handbook for Lawyers (2d ed. 2021), https://www.apa.org/pi/aging/resources/guides/diminished-capacity.pdf. become unusually susceptible to outside influencefrom family members, new acquaintances, or outright scams. In these situations, questions may later arise about whether those decisions reflected the clients intent and if appropriate steps were taken to support and protect them. Early recognition allows advisors to respond thoughtfully, while the client is still able to meaningfully participate in the conversation and in making decisions about their financial life. When to Shift from Observation to Action When patterns that cause concern become more consistent, it may be time to move from observation to a more structured response. At this stage, the advisors role often expands from managing investments to helping protect the clients broader financial plans. Having a clear, repeatable approach can help ensure that responses are consistent, measured, and aligned with both client interests and firm practices. Practical Steps Advisors Can Take Establish a four-ears protocol. When behavioral concerns arise, involve a second team member in key meetings. An objective witness provides an additional perspective and can help document the clients understanding and decision-making process. Trigger a comprehensive plan review. Cognitive changes can be a signal to revisit the clients full financial and estate plan, offering an important opportunity to confirm beneficiary designations, trust funding, and successor roles while the client can still participate. Validate the safety net. Confirm trusted contacts and powers of attorney across accounts. Position this step as a standard safeguard, ensuring that there is a clear line of communication if the client becomes unavailable or needs support. Involve the broader advisory team. With the clients consent, consider coordinating with the clients family members, CPA, or attorney. Early collaboration can make future transitions smoother and reduce confusion later. Introduce strategic pause points. For large, uncharacteristic decisions, build in a neutral cooling-off period. Framing this as part of your standard process allows you to slow decision-making without directly challenging the client. Document observations and decisions. Maintain clear records of client interactions, instructions, and any observed changes in behavior. Documentation supports continuity of care and helps protect both the client and the firm. A Shift in Role, Handled Thoughtfully Cognitive decline rarely announces itself. More often, it appears gradually in ways that can be easy to rationalize or overlook. The advisors job is not to diagnose or assume but to recognize when something may be changing and to respond in a way that is measured, respectful, and consistent. Handled thoughtfully, these situations allow advisors to do what they do best: help clients navigate complexity, protect what matters, and plan for what comes next, even when the circumstances are evolving.