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News Release

The Ohio Developmental Disabilities Council (ODDC)
8 East Long Street, Suite 1200
COL OH 43215

Contact: Fatica Diana Ayers (614)466-5232

August 29, 2003

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The Costs of Triple Jeopardy: Aging, Developmental Disabilities, And Ohio’s Impending Care Shift

Scripps Gerontology Center has completed a report that was funded by the Ohio Developmental Disabilities Council that describes how Ohio is a triple jeopardy state.

Ohio has:

aging individuals with developmental disability who are about to lose their primary system of support;
aging caregivers who may need care themselves and who are likely to lose capacity to provide care; and
a long-term care system, in both the aging network and MR/DD, already unable to meet existing need and facing an imminent and significant increase.

Ohio’s Legislative Budget Office estimates that there are currently 6,500 individuals on waiting lists for residential services. The number of families with aging caregivers is expected to double by 2030. The impact of Triple Jeopardy will only intensify with time.

While we have anticipated the aging of baby boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, we did not anticipate the level of survival of baby boomers with developmental disabilities into the 21st Century. Most of Ohio’s Double Jeopardy families are composed of baby boomers with developmental disabilities and their aging parents in there 70s and 80s. For the most part, these parents have not expected their children to outlive them, and they find themselves in the once unforeseeable circumstances of perpetual parenthood. Through it all, these parents kept their children at home. Today they represent that network of care known as informal caregivers, providing uncompensated, in-home care and support; some are assisted by the formal system of care provided mostly through county boards, and some are not.

This report not only outlines the challenges that Ohio will face and provides limited data on the subject, but it also shares profiles of real families that are currently facing this issue.

For a copy of the report go to our website at www.state.oh.us/ddc/pub/scripps.htm