3 Ways Financial Planning for Clients Over Age 80 Improves Their Quality of Life
Dear Advisors,
I’m sure we’d all like our best clients to be clients for life! We help our clients with various projects and decisions in each stage of life. But advisors, myself included, tend to stop doing financial planning for clients over age 80-85. It’s awkward to talk about life goals with a client who may not be with us this time next year. So, what’s the point of financial planning for elderly clients? I’m not referring to managing their investments and reviewing their beneficiaries and estate documents. I mean real financial planning that helps people find their purpose in life at any age.
Studies have been done to measure how having a stated purpose in life may combat Alzheimer’s. They found that having a life purpose does not prevent the brain from developing the plaques and tangles associated with Alzheimer’s. However, it does significantly improve memory because the brain creates new neural pathways to help achieve the life purpose. Helping elderly clients set goals and find purpose, or passion, can significantly improve quality of life.
What does this mean to us, as financial advisors? We recommend these 3 financial planning exercises you can do with your elderly clients, to help them set goals and live a meaningful life.
DISCOVER - Next time your elderly client meets with you, look up the average life expectancy for someone their age. Ask your client, “What do you want to make the most of, or accomplish, in those remaining years? What do you need to do to get there?”
Rationale - At age 85 or older, 72% of people have one disability and over 50% have more than one disability. How do you imagine a good life with a body that doesn’t do all that it used to?
DESIGN - Help them write down their Ideal Week to make sure they schedule time for things they are passionate about. If the one goal is to attend church every Sunday, then you need to help them get access to the resources they need to make that happen. Encourage them to find activities they enjoy, that are useful to others, or build relationships.
Rationale - Aging is a process of giving up control and learning to ask for help. Seniors who feel useful to others live longer, with fewer disabilities, greater mobility, and more resilience to arthritis pain. Relationships are proven to bring happiness and longevity. Gerontologists compare the risks of living alone to those of smoking. Seniors need to prioritize the important relationships they have and make new ones as they go.
ELLEVATE - Ask your client to keep a gratitude journal. (Writing down ways in which their life is better than others is not sufficient.) This exercise is a process of becoming thankful for what we’ve been given in life. If it’s no longer possible to write, you might suggest meditating, or pausing to be thankful while watching the sunset.
Rationale - Listing life’s blessings increases a sense of well-being and optimism. Keeping a gratitude journal is proven to lower blood pressure, reduce inflammation, increase the strength of the immune system, and lower levels of the stress hormone, cortisol.
Pro-tip: If you have clients who live in a nursing home, check if the facility has programs to help residents get connected and feel useful to someone, without that someone having the burden of caring for them or entering into serious long-term relationship. It’s also becoming more important that healthcare facilities for the elderly have written policies on dating with or in-between patients, especially for those who have Alzheimer’s or dementia.
While it’s impossible to understand or appreciate what our elderly clients experience every day, we should try to separate the problems of aging from the person inside. Surveys repeatedly show the older we get, the more we would rather have a longer life, even if it’s not one of good health. Most octogenarians would not give up even 1 month of their life, even if it meant they could return to excellent health. No matter how difficult life gets, we can find ways to be thankful for the gift of every extra day.
Much of the data in this post comes from a powerful book I read this week titled Happiness is a Choice You Make: Lessons from a Year Living Among the Oldest Old, by John Leland. If you found this interesting, be sure to check back next week for Part 2 of 2. We’ll discuss how your own mindset about aging is keeping you from being happy today and in your later years!
Warm regards,
Brooklyn
P.S.
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