August 2014

A new study reported on this week found that daughters are significantly more helpful than sons when it comes to taking care of their elderly parents.  Referencing data found from surveying 26,000 Americans, it seems that daughters spend on average 12.3 hours a month looking after an elderly parent versus sons who spend on average 5.6 hours a month caring for their elderly parents.  Significantly, gender is an important factor….

Over the years since All About Estates has existed there have been several blogs dealing with the roles and responsibilities of acting as an executor/trustee, as well as the potential liability an executor/trustee faces. As estate planners we work with our clients in understanding the “job” of being an executor/trustee so our clients can make an appropriate selection. We also work with our clients in recommending that they include an….

With the tragic death of Robin Williams, who touched so many of us with his humour, this week’s blog is about mental health and specifically, depression. The Canadian Coalition for Seniors Mental Health tells us that depression is the most common mental health problem for older adults and has ‘profound negative impacts on all aspects of their life, not to mention the impact on family and the community’. Depression is….

A Canadian contribution to the commonly used cognitive screening instruments is the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), published by Nasreddine et al in 2005.  Unlike the Mini-Mental State Exam (MMSE) or the clock-drawing test (CDT), the MoCA is designed to detect more subtle impairments of cognition, known clinically as Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI).  Like the MMSE, it is scored out of 30, which can cause a misunderstanding about the severity of….

For some time I have intuitively believed that because individuals are living longer that estate transfer values must be on the decline. I also believe this statement jives with Modigliani’s ‘life-cycle’ theory that essentially suggests that individuals accumulate capital primarily for retirement, not necessarily to create an ‘Estate’. Thomas Piketty, a Professor at the Paris School of Economics, recently authored a book ‘Capital in the Twenty First Century’. His book….