circular wrote:If they've already set up an account, it seems to take using their email to request a new password, changing the password to one you know but they don't, and then going and changing the email and other settings. They still may get a notification so just be aware if it's a touchy issue. My mother is having issues with logging in to anything and keeps changing the passwords at different websites. I left her with, among many other things, a list of reminders to go over every day (and I remind her to go over it every day). One is not to try changing the passwords but to call me for help with her online business. We'll see how that goes.
You're doing the best that can be done until your mother decides to turn over all the finances to you. The good news is that those checklists, post-its, and other reminders can be a tremendous help. But this is also a difficult phase because she may not be ready to let go of her responsibilities, or she may even be stressed out at forgetting to pay a bill.
I think that the excessive worry is all rooted in distress at their cognitive symptoms, but it's expressed as obsessions over mundane things like paying the rent or writing a check. All you may be able to do is reassure or redirect instead of correcting.
circular wrote:I quick checked the legal papers I stuffed in my bag and brought home and the POA is durable, one naming me and an identical naming my sibling. Anyone know if these are active at all times, whereas advanced directives (at least my mother's) require triggering by two doctors? In other words can I use the durable POA now to make changes to credit card and bank accounts independently (changes that can't be done online), or does it need triggering? I would like to close a couple credit card accounts after paying them off. Need to liquidate some stocks to pay them off. Etc. Will be doing this in consultation with my brother who's too busy to do the legwork, but not sure if we need to go to the attorney or some such thing.
I'm not a lawyer, but it sounds like your POA is a typical one that's active as soon as it's signed. If it had a trigger then it'd be a separate paragraph in the POA specifying the conditions.
The credit card company may fuss about wanting the POA on "their" form, which is an even longer delay in doing what you (and your mother) want done. On the other hand a credit card is unsecured debt so they may be very eager to get their hands on her money and close her account, with or without a POA.
You may have already tried this, but is your mother interested in speaking to the credit card company over the phone or in signing a letter that you wrote? On the phone, she'll just have to establish who she is and what she wants to do before turning the phone back over to you. By letter, she just has to sign your draft.
Once the accounts are closed you could have the credit-reporting agencies put a fraud alert or a freeze on her Social Security number. You'd be notified if anyone tries to apply for more credit in her name... including her.
I think the travel is the worst part. You're already stressed (even without having to navigate crowds of fellow travelers) and then you end up working The 36-Hour Day to get everything done before you have to head back home. You can't sleep well because your brain is buzzing with everything that has to be done before you join the crowd of fellow travelers, and it just becomes a vicious downward spiral.
circular wrote:Lucy5 wrote:
My guess has long been that many of us (me included) would tend to be slow admitting to ourselves, let alone family/friends, that we have a developing problem.
One problem I saw happening for some time was my mother's circle of aging friends would all share their memory issues and agree it was just aging, since they all had them. But of course they're not the ones best prepared to sort which are normal aging and which aren't. My mother used the "I know it's just age, we all talk about it all the time" fallback for a long time, until she couldn't cope well anymore.
Doctors (and patients) say that the patient is the first to recognize the cognitive decline, but then either denial kicks in or people just get frustrated with the medical system's never-ending tests. We went through the "slipping memory" phase for over a year, and by the point that Dad started using that phrase he was not interested in any help from "you boys" (we're in our 50s) or in "being a lab rat".
Lucy5 wrote:Circ wrote:
That said, she's not dx with AD at this time but rather MCI. They need to rule out other things etc.
Circ, I've been following your posts and understand what you're going thru. So tough. Hoping the MCI diagnosis has a benign cause that's actionable. Pls, hard as it is, take time for yourself somehow - know it's hard - but you have to do it! And you know your Mom would want you to. (Plus now you have all of Nords' experience/wisdom to help you cut thru some of the complexities of your situation.) Keep us posted on how things are going.
MCI is hard to nail down. Ideally the doctor would have already ruled out a urinary tract infection, but that frustration is what drove Bob DeMarco to measure his mother's temperature every day.
Meanwhile MCI could be caused by prescription medication side effects, there's the possibility of a half-dozen different syndromes that start as dementia, and there's causes which can only be ruled out by spinal taps or complicated brain scans or sleep studies. Nobody wants to go through all of the tests and scans in the first place, let alone someone with MCI symptoms.
It reminds me of David Hilfiker's blog. He's diagnosed with MCI but that's all they've been able to figure out. They can't find any physical signs of Alzheimer's on the brain scans, and his latest neuropsych exam (after the second year of very real symptoms) says that he's stabilized. He's physically healthy but nobody seems to be able to come up with a better diagnosis.
Here's his October 2013 post about "it's not Alzheimer's":
http://davidhilfiker.blogspot.com/2013/ ... imers.html
and here's his Feb 2016 update:
http://davidhilfiker.blogspot.com/2016/ ... teful.html
Another example is Marie Marley, a guest poster on Bob DeMarco's blog. She was initially diagnosed with MCI but after many many more tests it proved to be severe sleep apnea:
http://www.alzheimersreadingroom.com/20 ... ot-to.html
It turns out that sleep apnea is much more prevalent in older adults than previously understood, and now it's one of the most common disability claims at the Veterans Administration among U.S. military vets.
I guess the only consolation I can offer is that you do the best you can as long as your elder is willing to accept your help.