Long term care and outliving one’s money are the greatest threats to financial security for people 50 and older. Whether it’s their own care, paying for their aging parents’ care, or compromising their income and health to take time out of the workforce for caregiving. Financial planning and long term care insurance exist to help ensure financial security with age, while reducing suffering and providing peace of mind. No matter how good your advisors are, no matter how good your policies are, no matter how financially responsible your clients are, there are hidden threats that amplify the threats of long term care and asset spend-down.
The Hidden Threats
The design of our housing and communities contributes to preventable decline as we age. This unnecessarily increases long term care needs, costs, and caregiving demands, depleting retirement savings and family assets. Many are aware of home modifications, and while these can be helpful, they typically come too late, after a person has been dis-abled by the design of their own home.
This can result in:
–forced frailty: being dis-abled by the design of one’s home and community
–eviction by design: being forced to move from one’s home of choice due to design that fails to meet needs across the lifespan
–impoverishment by design: losing one’s assets to long term care costs that could have been prevented
Reduce Long Term Care & Caregiving as
Threats to Financial Security & QOL:
Apply the Enabling Design Approach
The Pillars of the Enabling Design Approach
theory
PERSON/ENVIRONMENT FIT
There is an optimal fit between a person and their environment
Good Fit = the person can function at a high level and be independent as possible
Poor Fit = the person struggles to adapt to the environment’s demands and experiences artificially greater dependence
fact
THE STATUS QUO IS DIS-ABLING
We currently create products, places, and systems that are designed for a subset of the population — the average height male, with high sensory, cognitive, and physical abilities–forcing everyone else to adapt.
strategy
ENABLE PEOPLE TO THRIVE!
Looking through the lens of the first two pillars, we consider issues, needs, economics, and programs to harness the power of the environment to enable your clients to function at their highest level and THRIVE!
The Enabling Design Approach
to Longevity Planning
Using the pillars as a foundation, the Approach is:
- Create a Paradigm Shift: see the problem in its entirety and accurately for truly effective solutions.
- Learn: what are normal age-related changes, what are not, and how design features contribute to decline or enable independence.
- Apply: revise + develop services, products, and materials–that reflect and address the threat and help your clients be proactive in minimizing preventable frailty and/or reduce caregiving burden.
The Enabling Design Approach can:
- Help people maintain their physical and financial independence as they age
- Reduce long term care costs
- Reduce asset spend down
- Reduce long term care insurance claims
- Reduce caregiver burden
- Improve workplaces by addressing the negative impacts of caregiving
- Reduce generational asset migration
- Enable health systems and communities to reduce frailty and demands on services
- Create products and services that actually meet real needs
Silver to Gold Longevity Strategies Help You
Excel at Meeting the Needs of the 50+ Population to
Optimize Longevity Planning
RESOURCE: Enabling Physical & Financial Independence in Retirement
The Enabling Design Approach can be applied to help people reduce long term care needs and expenses as well as the likelihood of impoverishment in old age. Learn more in this article, “Enabling Design: The Missing Framework for Longevity Planning.”
problems we address
HOUSING THAT CREATES FRAILTY
The design of our housing and communities artificially accelerates age-related decline resulting in forced frailty. This is preventable with good design. Enabling Design features can improve quality of life, delay or prevent a move to a care facility, and reduce caregiving demands and long term care costs for individuals, families, and communities.
PRODUCTS THAT FAIL
Many products, technologies, and services are designed without knowledge and understanding of the needs, behaviors, and desires of older adults–and others who are affected, such as caregivers. When you fail to satisfy you lose the market or waste money on trying to help them with support. By the way, how well is your client support designed? Are your representatives trained to understand and properly support people 50 and older?
WORKPLACES THAT WORK AGAINST YOU
Why allow your workforce to struggle to adapt to physical & policy environments that push them to an artificially lower level? This is particularly true if they are female, older, neurodivergent, have a disability, or all of these. Your DEI strategies, ESG policies, and EA program can be complete and relevant when informed by the Enabling Design Approach.