The Coming Special Needs Care Crisis

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/04/29/an-epidemic-of-special-needs-kids-heads-for-a-crisis-of-care.html
"But for most parents, it’s the day-to-day stuff that consumes them: the hours of therapy, the doctor visits, the financial pressures, and the grinding anxiety that comes with it all. It is a rough, often isolating road. And one that promises to become even more challenging as our society enters a new, more complicated era of caregiving. That era is coming in part because many of the medical and social advances that have improved the lives of special-needs individuals have also increased the burden of caring for them. For instance, people with Down syndrome were once lucky to survive to age 30; today, the average lifespan is 55. This presents parents (and society more broadly) with the challenge of somehow providing for an adult child decades after their own deaths, a situation complicated by the fact that the Down population develops Alzheimer’s at a rate of 100 percent, typically in their 40s or 50s."

These are the problems that parents face when raising a child with disabilities, from birth. What about someone who is used to being self-sufficient? What would one do about the financial and emotional problems is suddenly stricken with disability? would you be able to cope with relying on others for daily living?

thinking hard,
Jessica