Last night I saw what may be simultaneously the most remarkable, the most uplifting, and the most maddening movie I have ever seen. It is a movie that should be seen by anyone who has a family member or a friend in a nursing home, and by anyone who may someday end up in a nursing home themselves. Yes, I mean you.
The movie is called “Alive Inside”, and it works on several levels. It is a documentary that shows how people suffering from dementia come alive again you let them listen to their favorite music. It is a scientific exploration of the effect of music on memory and brain function. It is a condemnation of a healthcare system that warehouses people in nursing homes, a system that pays millions of dollars for mind-altering drugs, but won’t pay $40 for an iPod that can achieve better results. It is a condemnation of our entire culture, a culture that deprives elders of their birthright of respect and wisdom, and leaves them feeling useless as a broken pot, a hollowed-out shell of the real (i.e. “useful”) person they once were.
For lawyers, the movie is something else. It is both an SOS and a clarion call. We are not doing our clients a service when we simply plan to get the state to pay for their nursing home care. We need to help people plan to stay out of the nursing home altogether, and to have a life that is as fully human as possible if they have to go into a nursing home. In short, we need to be doing legacy planning, not just estate planning or Medicaid planning.
I urge you to check out the movie trailer at www.aliveinside.us or through https://musicandmemory.org/. You should then figure out how to see the entire movie, the full impact of which cannot be conveyed in a two-minute trailer.
I could say more, but I have to get working on my playlist.