News - Winter 2008

How big is the need for retirement planning?

Huge, according to a new US organization called PREP - The Partnership for Retirement Education and Planning (PREP)(www.preppartnership.com).

To help Boomers better understand and address the unique financial challenges they'll face in retirement, 11 non-profit financial associations, representing more than 200,000 financial services professionals around the world, have formed this unprecedented collaboration.

"Unfortunately, the Boomer generation as a whole has not planned well for what is likely to be a lengthy retirement for most of them,” says Philip E. Harriman, CLU, ChFC, past president of the Million Dollar Round Table and spokesperson for the PREP coalition. "Recent research shows only one-third of retirees are very confident they will have enough money to take care of basic expenses. Current market dynamics increase their anxiety."

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Women and Long Term Care

If you are wondering why Karen continues to speak about the special care risks that women face, here’s why:

• More than 75% of long-term care home beds are occupied by women, many of whom suffer from a moderately severe dementing illness
• According to 2006 Census data, currently 4.3 million Canadians are seniors; one million are over 80, with two-thirds of them being women
• 4,635 people are over 100, five-sixths of whom are female
• In 1991, a study of seniors aged 85 or more who suffered from dementia revealed that 70% were women
• Three reports published by The Canadian Association of Social Workers (CASW), the Canadian Centre of Policy Alternatives (CCPA) and the New Democratic Party of Canada (NDP) all recognized the federal government’s failure to recognize and accommodate women’s different employment patterns, including family caregiving roles that often decrease women’s eligibility and benefits received from both the EI program and the Canada Pension Plan as well as having an impact on women’s work-family balance.

Ever heard of parkinsondiaglaucoma?

And if you are wondering why Karen often talks about the chronic disease epidemic, here are some reasons:

• People who have complex chronic illness are those who have three or more simultaneous chronic conditions. These are diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, cancer, arthritis and HIV/AIDS
• There have been no cures for major illnesses in the last 50 years (the last disease eradicated was small pox in 1954.) However, new diagnostic and life-saving technologies, medicines and treatments mean that a long list of diseases are no longer terminal upon diagnosis, but chronic. As a result, Canadians are living longer, but often with multiple chronic illnesses.
• Complex chronic disease currently consumes two-thirds of all health care spending – creating a demand that will only increase as the population ages
• One-third of Canadians over the age of 60 suffer from complex illness

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Majority of Canadian boomers have memory loss: poll

And finally, another reason Karen continues to talk about cognitive impairment or dementia: A June, 2008 survey of 1,390 adults, commissioned by the Alzheimer's Foundation for Caregiving in Canada, and conducted by the pollster IPSOS found 6 in 10 Canadian baby boomers have experienced a mild form of memory decline in the past year symptoms of a disorder called Age Associated Memory Impairment (AAMI).

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