If you or a loved one have received a diagnosis for Alzheimer’s disease, creating a legal plan for the future is an essential step for ensuring that medical care and financial assets are managed properly. It’s best to address this plan as early as possible, ensuring that the necessary people are as prepared as possible and that you can focus on enjoying your life, family, and friends.

What Should Your Legal Plan Include?

Legal planning can look complex but it’s really about gathering all the right information into one place in a legally clear and binding format to ensure that any issues and challenges can be managed effectively, quickly and with minimal hassle as they arise. Generally, your legal plan should include the following:

• Medical Power of Attorney or Healthcare Proxy: This is a legal document that names a person of your choice to make health care decisions on your behalf if you are no longer able to do so. These decisions will be made in line with your wishes, and you can include details on all your medical care wishes from the kind of long-term care you have planned for to whether or not you want to receive extreme lifesaving measures.
• Financial Power of Attorney: Similar to the document mentioned above, this names a person to make financial decisions on your behalf if you are no longer able to do so yourself. Again, you can outline your wishes in detail within the document in order to guide the person who will speak on your behalf.
• Legal capacity: This refers to the ability to make rational decisions and is important to include in your legal documentation, as it will come into effect in the later stages of the disease. Your attorney can assist you in creating a document that defines the conditions under which you no longer have the legal capacity – and this is when your medical and financial Power of Attorney documents will come into effect. Simply creating this document does not affect your legal rights – in reality, it helps protect your rights by ensuring that decisions about your health and financial assets are held to the legal plan that you create.
• Updating existing documents: If you have a Last Will and Testament, a trust or other elements of an estate plan, now is a good time to gather them, review them and update them as necessary. You will need to gather a complete list of your property and other assets and decide on how you would like them to be protected or distributed.
• Long-term care: Long-term care plans are especially essential, and even if you have no need for care at present, it’s important that you evaluate your options and put in place legal instructions as to your preferences if and when the need for them arises. This includes looking into different care options and facilities to determine a good fit, as well as putting in place a plan to pay for your preferred care option.

Compassionate Legal Advice and Planning from Your Elder Law Attorney New Jersey 

Frank R. Campisano is a highly experienced and compassionate elder law attorney with considerable knowledge of estate planning, retirement planning, and Medicaid issues. Experienced in elder law, compassionate and committed to his clients, you’ll receive the highest quality legal expertise and guidance. In addition to sound elder law advice, you can also prepare additional estate planning documents, such as your Last Will and Testament, Power of Attorney documents, medical directives and trusts.

For a free consultation, please contact us today or visit our website at https://www.scclegal.com/