A new California law that allows for physician-assisted suicide is broadly supported by the general public in the state. Doctors, however, are far more skeptical about it. For a long time many elder law advocates and patients' rights advocates have argued that terminally ill people should have the option to get a prescription from their [...]
Japan's increasing aging population is creating many problems for the island nation. A bizarre one is corpse hotels in residential neighborhoods. Japan has a real estate shortage. There are not enough available plots of land on the islands to build everything that the country needs. You might expect that a real estate shortage would lead [...]
In an important step for senior citizens the Senate has passed the Older Americans Act Reauthorization Act of 2015. The bipartisan bill now awaits the President's signature. Originally passed in 1965, the Older Americans Act provided key funding for important programs for the elderly. It including funding for healthcare programs, elder abuse prevention programs, programs [...]
The financial abuse of the elderly is an ongoing problem in the U.S. that seems to be getting worse as a greater percentage of Americans are retiring. You can help prevent it without too much effort. Every year in the months just before and just after tax day, scammers pretending to be IRS agents increase [...]
The U.S. is not the only country to have concerns about its elderly guardianship system. The Japanese government has also tried to address the situation. Like other developed nations Japan has an aging population and an increasing number of dementia cases. In 2000, Japan started a guardianship system to help with this issue. The idea [...]
The alleged actions of a hospice owner in Texas may call into question the way in which Medicare and Medicaid reimburse hospices for patient care. Hospices are supposed to offer humane end-of-life care for their patients. They are not supposed to hasten the deaths of those patients. However, the system might unintentionally encourage a hospice [...]
In a disturbing ruling an appeals court in Iowa decided that the state had no duty to protect nursing home residents after it placed a sexual predator in the facility. William Cubbage was a dangerous sexual predator confined in Iowa's treatment program for its most dangerous offenders. However, the state of Iowa petitioned a court [...]
In addition to health hazards elderly hoarders often face eviction and expensive clean-up bills. In the last few years the problem of hoarders has been brought to the public's attention thanks to television shows about the people with the issue. Hoarders are people who collect and keep everything. Their homes become so full of stuff [...]
Analysts and entrepreneurs have recently hyped up what they call the sharing economy. Older Americans might be able to take advantage of it if they need extra income or are looking for a place to live. Services such as Uber and AirBnB have plenty of cheerleaders and detractors. On the one hand, they allow people [...]
A new study reveals that broker misconduct is greatest in counties that have a large and wealthy elderly population. The White House has estimated that broker misconduct costs elderly Americans $17 billion a year. As Forbes reports in "What Your Aging Parent's Broker Isn't Telling You" a recently released study conducted over a 10-year period [...]