Kevin McCormally: I am Kevin McCormally of Kiplinger's and I am with Mary Beth Franklin, Senior Editor of Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine to talk about Long Distance Caregiving. Mary Beth, the oldest of the boomer during the 60 this year, which means our parents in their 80s, maybe their 90s how can the boomer help care for their parents who may be thousands of miles away?
Mary Beth Franklin: Well, this is a phenomena known as Long Distance Caregiving and it can be a nightmare. There are about 34 million people that are taking care of older people and about 5 million of them are doing it from long distance.
Kevin McCormally: How do they do it? How can you provide care for somebody who is a long way away?
Mary Beth Franklin: Oh, think Phone-tag, it's being at work and calling your mother's doctor in IOLA or checking on her prescription drugs or making sure the home help care aid is there, all the time while you are suppose to be at work, juggling your own professional responsibilities, and maybe with your kid soccer game at the same time.
Kevin McCormally: Well, it works as an interesting point, are employers doing anything to help employees do this?
Mary Beth Franklin: Yes employers have wised up to the fact that a distracted employee is not a productive employee, so you are starting to see more employee assisting programs where they can help you do some of the research. Know what sort of services are available in the town where your elder lives.
Kevin McCormally: Okay, let's say I don't have time to do this. I need the bright care but I don't have time. Is there anybody I can turn to for help?
Mary Beth Franklin: Yes, you can turn to a professional geriatric-care manager and if you go to the website icaregiver.org, you can help locate someone that's in your area that you can talk to or in the town of where your elder lives.
Kevin McCormally: What kind of services do they provide?
Mary Beth Franklin: Soup to nuts. They can do anything from an individual assessment that says, here is your parents situation, here is the services they need, all the way through to actually managing those services.
Kevin McCormally: Okay, thank you very much.
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