Here at The Potter Law Firm, we take our commitment to our neighbors in Fort Mitchell to heart. If you are looking for a licensed elder law or estate planning attorney in northern Kentucky, you have found a reliable local resource. Fort Mitchell is a quaint city in Kenton County, with a population of approximately 8,000. Once the site of a Civil War fortification built for the Defense of Cincinnati, Fort Mitchel was named for General Ormsby M. Mitchel, a professor at what is now the University of Cincinnati. It was General Mitchel who designed the fortifications.
We proudly serve the senior community of Fort Mitchell
Fort Mitchell has a lot to offer its senior community, including recreation sites, community centers. For example, the Fort Mitchell Seniors Club meets the third Monday of every month at noon at the Blessed Sacrament Church. These meetings provide refreshments, bingo, and card games. There are also several trips during the year that range in length from day trips to weekends and week-long trips.
Northern Kentucky Community Senior Centers
The Northern Kentucky Community Senior Centers offer programs for residents age 60 and older who live in Kenton County. The Senior Centers provide a unique opportunity for older adults to make new friendships and participate in fellowship, recreation, group outings, and educational activities.
Elder law planning and all of its benefits
If you’re like most people, chances are that you’ve never even heard of the area of law known as elder law. That’s certainly true if you’re in your younger years when legal concerns all seem to affect everyone on an equal basis. By the time you’re a senior citizen, the laws that directly impact you are likely to encompass topics that seem of little importance to the young. To understand why this will matter once you’re a senior, it is vital to understand just how elder law can impact your life.
What is Elder Law?
Elder law is a term that describes all of those legal issues that have an impact on people as they get into their retirement years and eventually pass on from this life. While many people just assume that retirees have everything pretty much well-established prior to reaching their senior years, nothing could be further from the truth. Seniors still have many legal matters of great importance to their lives; those concerns are just focused on different things than they dealt with in their younger years.
Start your elder law planning now
Of course, that is not to suggest that younger people cannot be impacted by elder law issues as well. In fact, there are many occasions in which elder law attorneys might be needed to assist young parents and others who experience unexpected life changes.
Elder law encompasses a broad range of legal concerns that affect seniors and others. To fully understand this impact on real lives, it can be helpful to examine some of the most relevant issues that cause seniors to turn to our elder law attorneys.
Elder law planning for assisted living
For many seniors, the increase in the average life expectancy means that at least some portion of their final years of life may require some level of assisted living. As seniors age, they often find that they can no longer do all of those daily tasks that were once considered routine. In addition, many suffer from various medical conditions that require a higher level of ongoing medical care than they can receive in their homes. As a result of these changes in their lives, millions of senior citizens require some type of long-term care in nursing homes or other care facilities.
The decision to move into a long-term care facility brings with it many challenges. In addition to concerns about the appropriate level of care and the selection of the right facility, there are also concerns about cost, the transition from independent to assisted living, and even things like elder abuse and neglect. Since few seniors can manage these costs on their own, many people turn to attorneys to help them plan for Medicaid eligibility. All of these things fall within the realm of elder law and can have a major impact on these seniors’ lives.
Elder law planning for incapacity
When most people think about seniors and incapacity, their minds automatically turn to diseases like Alzheimer’s and dementia. While it is true that any form of dementia can result in a loss of capacity that renders a person unable to think clearly and make his or her own decisions, there are other forms of incapacitation as well. Major illnesses or injuries can result in coma, loss of cognitive function, and other impairments that can create a temporary or even permanent disability and incapacitation. It should be noted that this isn’t by any means limited only to the elderly. Even young parents can suffer incapacitation.
Our elder law attorneys help seniors with potential incapacity by assisting them with the creation of important planning tools like powers of attorney and living wills. When the incapacitation has already occurred, an elder law attorney can assist with guardianship proceedings to ensure that the senior’s interests are protected.
If you have questions regarding elder law matters, please contact the experienced attorneys at The Potter Law Firm for a consultation. You can contact us either online or by calling us at (606) 324-5516 (Ashland, KY) or at (859) 372-6655 (Florence, KY) or for individuals in Charlotte or Huntersville, North Carolina at (704) 944-3245.
