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My mother is in stage 3 Alzheimer's. She has always been distrustful and paranoid which the Alzheimer's has magnified. She accuses my sister and me of trying to take over her money for own use. She added my sister as a signer on her accounts a year ago and now is accusing my sister of getting an attorney to help her take the money away from her. We are so tired of this with her. It has been on going for a month now. We have been leaving her alone because of this attitude she has toward us, but it is getting out of hand with her phone calls and accusations. We really think she needs some kind of medication but she won't take anything. How are we suppose to help her? Should we resign our duties to her since she is not letting this go. How much more can we take of her accusations?

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sharynmarie, thank you for the information about geriatric managers. My mother has a springing power of attorney, which sounds like what your mother has. I am not on it or any other one for that matter. But I just informed my brother what a springing POA is. He is going to try and get her to do a new POA. In her home state a law was passed January, 2012 for a new POA which must be accepted by all banks, etc. Unless you specify that you want a springing power of attorney, the poa will be active the moment it is notarized and signed. She will fight this.

Now I know what I will do if my brother dies and she no POA at all. My question is how would i go about hiring a geriatric manger and how would I pay for it since I would have no access to her funds?

I have no intentions of paying for anything for her since she is financially well off. Thanks!
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Thank you for responding suzmarie! To answer your question, if my sis and I are not DPOA, she would have to get a third party. We do have geriatric managers in our area she could hire. These managers will see to dr. appt., help with medical and financial, and home healthcare. There is a very good one in the next city who is a registered nurse as well as a degree in social work and geriatrics. She also manages for the adult children who live out of state and cannot take care of their elderly parents. She stays in contact with everyone concerned and addresses all issues in the care required.
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Joan~We have so many laws protecting the elderly from abuse because of adult children who have abused their parents in one way or another. Her attorney wrote the DPOA as being inactive until a licensed physician signs a certification of incapacity. The attorney does not know it has to be a neurologist. We live in a small city (65,000). Many specialized physicians are not local or on staff of the hospital here. Taking mom out of town to a neurologist is not a problem, it's only a 25 minute commute. To get a conservatorship requires us to go to court and only a judge can decide if she needs someone to make decisions regarding her physical well being. Documentation is required as well as witnesses to her incapacity. It takes approximately nine months for the whole process unless it is an emergency. When a person is in a situation as my mom, Adult Protective Services can be brought in to determine her mental state. I have no doubt they would recommend she see a neurologist and they have authority to force her as they are social workers for the state. It's a lot of red tape to go through. Hugs to you for all your support♥!!
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suz, Hi - we are talking about personality disorder here more than AD. My mother has been like this all her life - has short term memory loss now, but never been diagnosed with a dementia. She is in an ALF and manages all her affairs, and it competent, so far, it seems. Sharyn's mother has a personality disorder too and the Alz exacerbates that. They both are narcissistic. It makes dealing with their aging difficult.
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AD patients have broken logic buttons. I would not let a third party such as a caregiver have any access to your mother's check book. Yes, there are stories about CG's taking advantage and you don't want an unknown third party to even know how much money your mother has.
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It would help if the doctors would cooperate. It is awful to be pushed into a corner. I saw on the dys fun fam thread that your mum had a nosebleed and was in hospital. Can they evaluate her there in terms of her needs, the driving and the DPOA? Goodness, I think we all know you are not beng selfish. I see my mum slowly becoming less competent to make decisions for herself, and dread the day. if it happens, when I have to act on the POA. Here I just have to do it, and I know she will raise a major stink, and probably want to take me to court for senior abuse A geriatric manager sounds like a good idea. I may look into that as I am getting older, with some ailments myself. I don't know if there are any here. You may have to go for conservatorship some day. I know about everything turning into a fight. It seems to be how they are wired. ((((hugs)))) and ramble away.
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My mom now admits she has Alz. She was going to have a third party balance her check book but my sis and I were concerned about her chose because mom does not want to pay for anything she can get for free. Our concern was whether this person would eventually take advantage of her. If she had the bank do it...no problem. Maybe we are overly suspicious of people who are volunteers, but there have been too many cases of volunteers being predators. Anyway mom changed her mind. Has decided to let my sister balance her checkbook and start paying some of her bills. On May 2 we spoke with an attorney. He told us that to activiate our DPOA we need a licensed physician to give us a certification of incapacity regarding mom. The problem is, mom is not totally incompetent plus her cardiologist told us he can't do it, a neurologist has to do it and mom refuses to see a neurologist. Her cardiologist told us that she has considerable memory loss and should not be driving. We told him her primary care physician is being too soft and won't report her to DMV. He said he would talk with her PCP about this and see if he could change his mind. Please try to understand, we are not trying to have mom declared incompetent for selfish reasons. We want to protect her from others that she may decide to have help her because she gets angry with us for telling her the truth about her health, then she accuses us of trying to steal her money, house, car. Her accusations are a result of her personality disorder not the Alz (but the Alz makes the personality disorder worse). We cannot force her to do anything against her will without having conservatorhip. This includes placing her in a NH when the time comes. Our goal is for her to remain as independent for as long as possible by having home healthcare help her at her home (which she refuses even though she started a kitchen fire in January). Our plan now is after we take her to lunch on Sunday, we will tell her she needs to stop driving and see a neurologist. If she refuses, we plan to tell her that we will call Adult Protective Services and they will force her to be evaluated. I see no other option at this time, any suggestions will be appreciated??? We would love for this situation to be resolved without issues but mom sees herself as a victim so she fights instead of being logical.We have suggested to mom that she have a third party take care of things for her, but she takes that as we don't want to help her plus she doesn't want to pay the extra fees. She can afford it, just very frugal. There are geriatric managers available who are licensed. Thank you for letting me ramble on about this situation. Hugs to everyone and I hope all of you are dealing well with your situations♥!!
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I would love someone who has actually disengaged with a parent give their input as to who can you get if none of the parent's children can or wish to be POA. I know you can hire caretakers and guardianship can be appointed. But with a difficult parent, and mine is much like emjo's, sometimes it is not the best to be in control of their finances. Mine has already accused me of asking for money (not one ounce of truth there) and she is very paranoid about money. So, what do you do?
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How are you doing with this sharyn? So far I have negotiated my way through that maze relatively successfully, but there was a time when mother wrote me out of her will for some threat she percieved. I have POA, but she still manages her finances. Should she deteriorate to the point that I have to take over managing her financial affairs, I know there will be serious trouble because of the paranoia and the narcissism. I like to look at the worst and best scenarios, and see how I would cope with them. I have had to distance myself signficantly from her anyway, because of demands and nastiness. My objective is that her finances are well managed. Who does that, as long as they do it well, is of lesser importance. I have considered suggesting to mother that an impartial third party act as POA, rather than me, and will revisit that is she gets difficult. I would document what you can about what is happening - accusations etc. Does she allow you to pay bills for her and do the job of POA. If she does, then maybe work on detaching emotionally, for your own protection. It is very difficult to help when you have it thrown back in your face, I know. At some point you may need legal, or, other counsel. ((((((hugs)))))
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yeah mom behaviour will be made miles worse by her alz, so leaving her and her finances alone wont help her. sounds like you and your sister need help and support to undersand and manage mams behaviour, can social services, or doctor or alz society help you, one thing i do no is she will be struggling and confused with her emotions as much as you and your sister are but try stick with her if your all she has good luck x
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If you and your sister are not POA who will be? Someone has to look after moms money and medical.
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Thank you both for good advice. I am going to go to the bank with her so they can show her where she gave my sister and me authorization to be signers on her accounts. It will serve as a documented proof of my mother's actions authorization. Then if she wants us off her POA we can go to her attorney to have us removed. This will call her bluff.
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I agree with lily, third party may make the difference. My Mom who does not have dementia or alzheimers is just about as bad as yours. So distrustful. Has had an easy life, very healthy, kids no trouble, is 81 and can still drive. But nutty as a fruit cake and negative as can be. Only trusts my brother for now. Has lied about me over and over to keep me off her POAs. At this point, I wouldn't touch her stuff with a ten foot pole. If it should come to me having to take over, I will let the courts appoint someone. I know that is crazy but so is she. You have to protect yourself as well.
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When we ran into a sticky financial situation, we took Mom to her bank and had a long time employee sit down and discuss things. She seemed to be willing to listen to someone other than family.
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