Planning for the transfer of care. (Aging and Disabilities: Seeking Common Ground)

Most individuals with lifelong disabilities live with their families, who provide care for them, often throughout their entire lives. Nonfamily placement of adults with disabilities, in a residential facility, for exampie, often does not take place until death or disability of the family caregiver occurs.

In earlier times, indeed until the last few decades, life expectancy of individuals with developmental or lifelong disabilities was shorter than that of the population in general. Parents did not expect children with disabilities to survive beyond young adulthood. However, recent demographic trends toward increased longevity among the general population can also be observed among persibs with disabilities,and parents of a child with disabilities are now likely to be survived by that child. As a result of these increases in life expectancy, the period of family caregiving for a relative with a disability has also been prolonged. The two-generation geriatric household is not uncommon. In these situations, parents in their 70s, 80s or even 90s are caring for an adult child with a disability who may also be considered elderly. The parent caregivers, who are …