On Financial Abuse

Writing the last post on Private Care Agreements, made me finally write something about financial abuse because I have seen a lot of it lately. But subtle financial abuse (or, as you might call it SFA, although nobody that I know calls it that yet, but if you start then they might).

Where was I. Oh yeah.

There have been several instances in which a caregiver has had power of attorney for an elderly person who has become cognitively impaired due to dementia of some sort, and they have not really considered all of the options available for the person they are taking care of. For instance--using the equity in the house to get a loan or reverse mortgage to allow the person to stay in their home. Instead, they have gone right to having their relative go into care. Or they have told me, "but --wanted to leave the money to us/the children/grandchildren." That is the reason they do not go the extra mile.

The problem is that ethically, the person's money and assets should be spent on them first. Unless you have said to them, "What if you need to go into a nursing home--would you want to do that to make sure the house goes to little Johnny?" then you need to assume that in this case they would want to have their needs met first.

If you don't have the time to manage their affairs so that they can stay in their home or do what they would have wished, that is when you bring in a Geriatric Care Manager. That is what we do--we manage things for them so that they can stay home. We will hire and monitor caregivers, we will get them to appointments, make sure medications are taken, etc., etc.

Yes,there may be times when for health or safety, a care facility is the best choice. But it should be a choice based on consideration of all the options.

This is also, by the way, why you have those icky conversations that you hav been avoiding that ask what your mother/father/husband/whomever would want in various situations. Living wills are the beginning, but also only the beginning.

Look at all the circumstances and possibilities, then ask what if?