Today’s older adults are generally savvy health care consumers in many areas, such as choosing insurance or asking medications questions. But there’s one area almost all of them (and their families) postpone examining: looking at extended care options before their need becomes critical.

“Everyone experiences anxiety periodically. It can even be good, a driving force that helps us accomplish something,” says Deborah Schiavone, Ph.D., a mental health specialist and assistant professor of nursing at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. “If you worry about your blood pressure for example, you are more likely to follow your health care provider’s suggestions to correct it.”