The 40/70 Rule: campaign to get older adults and their kids talking can help working boomers prepare for emergencies.

• Author: Lahm, Georgene
• Position: LOOKING AHEAD

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There was a time when a family care emergency sent busy employees running home to tend to their toddlers' runny noses and upset stomachs. Demographics have shifted, and that scenario is changing. Today, the needs of an aging parent are increasingly interfering with jobs as senior-care issues begin to play a more prominent role in the lives of many working Americans.

According to a local senior-care company, a communication gap may be partly to blame. Working boomers often are caught off-guard and unprepared for their older loved one's needs because they haven't communicated with their older family members to prepare back-up plans and to discover their parents' wishes, according to the owner of an Anchorage company, Home Instead Senior Care.

"Research shows that communication can be difficult for some boomers and their senior parents on a variety of topics," said Home Instead Senior Care's Stacee Frost, of the new program launched by the company in hopes of changing that.

Home Instead Senior Care's 40-70 Rule campaign provides several tools that can help ensure that working adults and their parents are better prepared. This campaign is designed to support adult children as they begin to address difficult issues with their parents such as driving, finances and independence.

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"The '40-70 Rule' means that if you are 40, or your parents are 70, it's time to start the conversation about some of these difficult topics," Frost said. "And that should make life a little easier for boomers both at home and at work."

Already 12.4 percent of the population is 65 and older and by 2030, almost one in five Americans--some 72 million people--will be 65 or older, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. A MetLife Mature Market Institute study published in 2006 revealed that the majority of family caregivers (79 percent) are providing care to someone over the age of 50. Nearly 60 percent of those caring for a senior adult are working--most full-time.

The expense of these caregiving situations is becoming too significant for employers to ignore. The cost of caregiving to U.S. business is up by $4 billion, compared with the last MetLife study on this topic, which was conducted in 1997.

The total estimated cost to employers for full-time employees who are caregivers of seniors amounts to $33.6 billion. Those costs cover absenteeism, replacing employees, elder-care crises, unpaid leave, workday interruptions and switching...