Permanency Planning Among Older parents of Adults with Lifelong Disabilities

Abstract

Older parents must be assisted in making permanency plans for their adult dependant offsprings. Although attention has been given to the accelerating numbers of adults with life-long disabilities and the elderly parents who care for them at home, there has been a lack of attention for how these parents must cope with the future of their offsprings when they can no longer continue as caregivers. As a step towards filling this lacuna, the current state of knowledge is reviewed encompassing the epidemiology of these families; residential, legal and financial options associated with permanency planning; interaction of older parents with formal service systems; factors predictive of the propensity of parents to engage in permanency planning; and the benefits derived by elderly parents from having made plans for the future well-being of their dependent offsprings.