Adele’s vision loss from glaucoma was forcing her, at age 78, to leave her home in Maine. She planned to move to Simi Valley, into a retirement community close to her son Bill. Though she had some fears, Adele knew she could enjoy life more and get the help she needed if she moved near her son and granddaughter. “Mom had increasingly become worried, as well as isolated from the things she liked to do,” Bill said. “She could no longer drive to the senior center and stayed in her bedroom more often because it was the easiest to navigate with her vision loss. Preparing meals was also becoming more difficult for her.” Bill, a dentist, had worries of his own. He couldn’t leave his job for the amount of time it would take to sort through the furnishings and memories his mother had accumulated over the years. “At lunch one day I was sharing my concerns with my staff, and my receptionist suggested I hire a senior move manager,” Bill said. According to Mary Kay Buysse, executive...

Hope is not a strategy, or so it’s been said. But hope seems to be the strategy for many American workers when it comes to their retirement plans. According to a just-released survey by the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies, the retirement plan for most workers over 50 is to not retire or to continue to work well past retirement age. Working later in life can be a good strategy for a lot of great reasons. Working helps to pay the bills, obtain medical benefits and stay mentally alert and socially engaged; but for many people work as a “retirement plan” is not realistic. Last year, 17 percent of retirees planned to stop working between the ages of 60 and 64, but in fact more than twice that number actually did, according to Employee Benefits Research Institute. The reasons for the unplanned retirements varied and sometimes spanned multiple factors, but all were unexpected and unplanned. •42 percent cited health problems or disability. •34 percent cited layoffs or...

My friend and workmate Greg has always been there for his kids. I remember the time he raced home from an overseas business trip to comfort his son, who had ruptured his spleen in an ATV accident, or the many red-eye flights he took in order to be on time to his daughter’s basketball, soccer and softball games. A few months ago Greg was diagnosed with ALS ( amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. The degenerative disease equally affects men and women and often strikes between the ages of 40 and 60; Greg is 50. Having watched two uncles suffer from ALS, Greg knows the disease is always fatal, most often within three to six years of diagnosis. Understanding time was not on his side, Greg visited an estate planning attorney to get his affairs in order. The attorney gave him some unexpected advice. “ During our conversation about financial matters and legal documents, my attorney put down her pen and asked me if I had considered how I could be there for...