Guides for families who need clearer choices, costs and next steps

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• "Someone is taking her money": spotting and stopping elder financial exploitation

  In most cases it is not a stranger on the phone — it is someone close. The signs, the mistake to avoid when you raise it, and the steps that actually stop the money leaving.

• Long-distance caregiving: how to organize it when you live far away

  From two time zones away you cannot tour ten facilities or drop in daily. The local network to build before the crisis, the documents to hold, and how to use the visits you do make.

• Keeping her at home longer: the changes that actually work (and the ones that do not)

  Almost nobody moves into a nursing home by decision — they move after a fall. The changes in order of effect, what Medicare and Medicaid actually pay for, and the signs home is no longer enough.

• What to pack for a nursing home: the first-day checklist (and what to leave at home)

  Clothes that survive an industrial laundry, the paperwork that actually matters, and the one page about her life that is worth more than everything else. Plus the classic first-day mistakes.