Information for Life – The How Tos
Have you ever searched all over the house for that one account number that you knew you had saved somewhere? Have you ever lost your wallet and wished you had all of your information saved in one place so that you access it quickly? How could the Information for Life kit help you, your clients and your loved ones?
The Information for Life kit helps provide answers with a free, easily accessible, comprehensive tool that has been specially designed to assist seniors and their caregivers in compiling important information. It provides the guidance needed for caregivers who need to make decisions for seniors and handle their affairs when they are no longer able to do so for themselves. The kit includes Emergency Contacts, Financial, Medical Advance Directives, Legal Documents, Insurance Documents, Health Needs and Medical History, an End of Life section, Caregiving Information, including a Caregiver Bill of Rights and a Daily & Lifestyle Routines form, and Family and Household Information, including a Household Information form and a Pet Information form. The complete Information for Life kit is now available on the CSA website (http://www.csa.us/InformationForLife.aspx).
Now that the Information for Life kit is available what exactly should you do with it? As you might imagine, completing the Information for Life kit is incredibly empowering and well worth the effort. To make sure that effort isn’t wasted it is important to save the information you have compiled, or urged your clients to compile, in a safe and easily accessible place in the case of an emergency. One suggestion is to download all of the forms and guides and put them into a binder separated with dividers by section. This way the information is easily accessible and does not end up in the bottom of a file cabinet. It’s a good idea to save the information electronically as well. You can scan the forms into your computer so that you have an electronic copy which can be easily shared with loved ones or advocates and is readily available when it is needed.
We would love to hear your stories! Please consider sharing your experiences with us.
Blog posting provided by The Society of Certified Senior Advisors
http://www.csa.us/