Great read. . . .I am witnessing this daily among friends themselves as well as their family members. So sad . . . . the quality of their long term care is quite questionable.
My father in law saved a good bit in order to leave his wife a means to live, but she passed before him. He was already suffering from dementia. We took care of him for 5 years, from nearby (taking meals, checking on him daily) to finally moving him in with us.
We put him in memory care (6 months, not my choice) when his aggression was too much to handle and he was strong and fit. He became violent there and doctors drugged him to the point he fell, had to have hip surgery, and came back to stay with us for the remaining year of his life, 10 months of it on hospice.
Costwise, memory care was a big hit at around 10k a month IIRC. After we brought him home after surgery, we had to bring in some part time help because his care was very difficult and I needed breaks. That care cost $28/hour, so about $900 a week. And all of the assisted devices. Medicare covered a lot but we rented an electric lift rather than use the hydraulic Medicare provided, just because it was so much easier on all of us.
With all of that, some of his inheritance still remained.
And yet, his daughter who had not visited or called but once or twice in 6 years, complained that we spent HER inheritance. I did not respond but fact is there would have been nothing for her had we not taken on the lions share of his care.
The real difficulty in all of this is there are not so many people in the world willing to care for loved ones the way we were, or have the ability being a one income family