How LTCi impacts the family caregivers of Alzheimer’s victims

Long-term care insurance doesn’t benefit only the policyholder – it also benefits the family caregiver at a time when that caregiver needs help.

OneAmerica discussed LTCi’s impact on caregivers as well as the company’s caregiver benefit in a recent webinar. The discussion centered on Alzheimer’s disease and its effect on families.

A diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease can be devastating to a family, and is a leading cause of LTCi claims, said Amy Chinn, who leads OneAmerica’s LTCi claims team. More than half (55%) of OneAmerica’s LTCi claims are for policyholders who have Alzheimer’s, she said. The Alzheimer’s Association estimates that unpaid caregivers – mostly family members – provide 19 billion hours of care annually to their loved ones who have Alzheimer’s.

“A diagnosis of Alzheimer’s dementia is unlike any other diagnosis,” she said. “Alzheimer’s unravels a person’s identity. It’s a roller coaster ride, it’s unpredictable and there’s not a recovery arc as there is with other diagnoses.”

Those caring for a loved one with Alzheimer’s often experience grief as the diseases progresses, Chinn said, and that grief can lead to depression and isolation. In addition, she said, caring for someone with Alzheimer’s requires a hypervigilance that she described as exhausting.

When an LTCi claim is filed, it is usually filed by the caregiver and not by the policyholder, she said, and that gives her and her team an opportunity to talk to the caregiver about their challenges and concerns.

“One of the things we talk about with caregivers is that there is so much guilt and caregivers are doing so much,” Chinn said.

“We tell them that two things can be true. One is that this journey is full-time, and two is that this is a challenge and you need to treat it as such. We tell them to take that guilt and make it a tool.”

LTCi that cares for caregivers

OneAmerica is building a caregiving community, Chinn said. The carrier has a new benefit for caregivers – Caregiver Consultant - within its LTCi policy.

“We recognize that to care for our policyholder, it’s important to care for the caregiver, she said.

Chinn described Caregiver Consultant as “a coach for the caregiver, a tactical piece of their role.”

The benefit includes a care consultant in the diagnosis that the policyholder has. “The consultant can help build a plan of care but they also are there for the caregiver’s emotional health and well-being,” she said.

The baby boomers are now at the age when they are at risk of developing dementia, said Donna Wilcox, professor of neurology at Indiana University School of Medicine. As that population continues to age, their children will be faced with having to care for their parents, a phenomenon she described as “a double hit.”

“We’ll be hit with increased incidents of dementia, but we also will lose members of the workforce who are in their middle age. They will have to make the difficult decision of whether to leave work to care for their parents,” she said.

Alzheimer’s disease has a span of between eight and 13 years from diagnosis to death, Wilcox said. “And in that period of time, we see a progressive decline not only in memory and thinking function, but also in neuropsychiatric symptoms – there are a lot of emotional symptoms that occur.”

She said typically the memory and thinking problems that Alzheimer’s causes are not what leads a patient to being placed in a care facility. “It’s the agitation and the neuropsychiatric symptoms that make Alzheimer’s very difficult for caregivers to deal with,” she said.

'A time of hope'

Wilcox said researchers are focusing on developing a test for early detection of the brain abnormalities that lead to Alzheimer’s disease.

IU is testing two drugs that help with early-stage Alzheimer’s systems, she said. These are the first two drugs that change the disease in the brain, removing the plaques from the brain that cause Alzheimer’s.

Wilcox described this as “the end of the beginning” for Alzheimer’s.

“This is the beginning of a new age to treat the disease. It’s a time of hope and optimism for the research field right now.”

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Susan Rupe is editor in chief, magazine, for InsuranceNewsNet. She formerly served as communications director for an insurance agents' association and was an award-winning newspaper reporter and editor. Contact her at [email protected].