On this board, a recurrent theme seems to be that general practice MDs won't help caregivers getting elders "committed", and won't give a firm diagnosis of AD and 'dementia' and are loathe to sign papers that will hasten an interaction with Social Services. They're supposed to be patient advocates, as I understand it. I've run into this with a GP. Are they worried about liability, lawsuits, other time-consuming legal involvement, actual medical issues, or what? Because this is the interwebs, you don't need to be an MD to answer, and your speculation is welcome ;-)
You really need to have your elder evaluated and become a patient of a gerontology practice in order for them to get the best treatment plan for their specific type and stage of dementia and have them tested so that the gerontology
guys can have them declared incompetent and have the results to back it up. If family is squabbbling about $$ and control, a good lawyer will destroy easily a GP's credibility. You have to have a whole gerotology practice work up to do a incompetency if family is at odds on this.
Yeah I know if you are out in the boondocks, your care is limited. But you can find a practice affliated with a medical school or a free-standing gerontolgoy practice and get them into that and have the testing done so that the right meds can be prescribed it will be a godsend. By & large the dementia's on their own are a long decline and pretty manageable until the final phases with the proper medication. If they don;t have other diseases to any real extent like CHD or diabetes or a cancer and they have Lewy Body Dementia - like my mom does - they can be quite cognitive for ages although not competent. It could be a decade plus of diagnosed dementia till they are not capable of their ADL's at all.