Having served more than 100,000 clients nationwide to date, Town and Country Law’s diligent staff are dedicated to providing no-nonsense, expert advice, helping clients to safeguard their legacies for future generations and ensure their wishes are heard and adhered to. Led by James Scotney, Town and Country Law offers a full spectrum of will writing and estate planning services, including putting in place measures to protect clients’ interests should they lose mental capacity in the future. This article will look at dementia, a degenerative cognitive disease that affects an estimated 944,000 people in the UK, including 1 in 11 people over the age of 65.
Rather than being a single condition, dementia is actually an umbrella term that describes a set of symptoms that worsen over time, affecting memory, language, behaviour and problem-solving skills. The most common type of dementia is Alzheimer’s disease, followed by vascular dementia.
Dementia is not part of the natural aging process but rather a progressive disorder. Symptoms are usually relatively mild to start with, worsening over time. Nerve cells that are responsible for relaying messages between different parts of the brain and body become damaged. As more nerve cells are affected, the brain becomes less able to work properly. Today, 19 out of 20 people with dementia have one of the four main types, namely Alzheimer’s, vascular dementia, dementia with Lewy bodies or frontotemporal dementia. A person may also have mixed dementia, where they experience symptoms of more than one dementia type.
Everyone has a chance of developing dementia at some point in their lifetime, although some individuals have a greater likelihood than others. The best way to lower the risk of developing dementia is by adopting a lifelong approach to good health, although a person may still develop dementia even if they take active steps to reduce risk factors.
The main risk factors for dementia are genetics, gender, age, associated long-term health conditions, lifestyle and cognitive reserve, i.e. the brain’s ability to remain functional despite developing disease. Although no one can eliminate the risk of developing dementia altogether, they can reduce the odds considerably by living in a healthy environment and leading a healthy lifestyle, for example by exercising regularly and avoiding smoking and excessive alcohol use. Although these healthy habits should ideally be instilled at an early age, it is never too late to make healthy changes.
A lasting power of attorney (LPA) is a legal instrument that enables people to appoint trusted donors to deal with their estate should they become incapacitated. Town and Country Law prepares LPAs for clients as part of its comprehensive estate planning and will writing services, protecting clients’ interests should they lose mental capacity due to dementia or some other form of cognitive impairment, safeguarding their assets and ensuring that their own decisions regarding their estate and wellbeing are always adhered to.