Hi Will
It's time to understand what is there for your dad and hook into the services available to your Dad before you step in and change your life and that of your daughter.
As others have said, don't do this. We've been there, seen it, done it, some of from long distance away, and it's hard, confusing, mentally draining and even when we moved in with our parents to 24/7 care, whilst holding down a job, we were exhausted, confused, and left without support by support services beacuse their opinion was "you're taking care of him/her ... carry on doing it".
None of us find oursleves on this forum without having gone through extensive periods of questioning, and google searching and releasing something isn't up. And then, based on my experience of PWD for over 12 years, we then reach-out to this forum to ask "is this normal ... or is an early sign of dementia and what can I do?" and always the recommendation you're at that stage now where something isn't up so get a formal diagnosis as soon as you can.
And I'm going to reiterate what others have said to me on this forum over the last 12 years of working with Mum with early and now late stages of Dementia, don't guess about this, contact your GP, get a formal diagnosis as soon as possible, it may take 3-6 months to get an appointments with the memory clinic but don't make any changes to your and your daughter's life until you have a diagnosis.
And, go with your Dad to the memory clinic and the assessment. There is a standard test they do which presents your loved one with a clock and say "What time is this?". It's like the stuff we all did when we were young learning about how to tell the time.
And it was horrible when I learnt that my Mum could no longer tell the time. But that also gave us an indication her brain was fried.
Your Dad is showing symptoms, can't understand his insulin, etc, but you and nurses are compensating, and that will work for a while but until you get a formal test to diagnose him, you'll be forever guessing.
You must get a diagnosis because without that, you can't hook into all the other services (as scant as they are), to support you and your family.
If you can get daignosis, then, although your Dad may have money, you'll hook in with social services and they will at the very least provide you with a person who can help you understand that stage your Dad is at and also support you.
Your concern seems to be about the amount of money he's spending and that he's ordering stuff on Deliveroo for food etc or perhaps he's just enough internet aware to know he can order stuff and hit buttons to buy stuff when he doesn't know he's done it.
Your concern is that he's spending loads of money online inluding food, which he can't afford, doesn't need, so how do you stop this from happening?
In short, you are LPA, you just tell the banks to withdraw his card and delete it. If you as LPA have access to his account, you can stop his card and stop him from withdrawing any money on his own.
And if you know where his online accounts are, as LPA, you can transfer his acounts to your own details so that he cannot do anything without you being aware of what is happening.
BUT I would ask why, would you do this if your father is relying on online deliveroo for food? Your Dad is more clued in than many of us who deal with our parents ... so what do you have in place to compensate?
Your father needs to eat. I had to work with my brothers to sort out Mum's food and we worked with all the major food suppliers online, and drew up meal plans and were there personally to carry them out and yes, food went rotten such that we were throwing stuff away buf as knew what she was eating and we made sure she ate all the recommended 5 a day.
My Mum got diagnosed by the memory clinic as having early Dementia in 2014. I know she had signs of PWD before that in 2010. But she is still alive today.
Food was a huge issue middle Dementia stage - and stuff about money and is a huge red flag as Mum's old memories knew that money was important as she had raised 5 kids without much money ... and that early memory became important for her with dementia .. and she kept accusing us all of stealing her money etc. Ironically, she didn't know that one of her son's stole 100k of her money when he registered as her POA, and it took us a while to find that out.
It's just how it is.
But anyone in this sitution I say to you all, your loved ones never expected you to have do this all for them and spend months, hours and weeks of your life sorting stuff out for them.
If they knew what we have done for them, they would have been giving us big hugs and lots of love, and also in my case, given me 10 gold stars for what I have done for the last 12 years to support Mum.
My Mum doesn't know me anymore. I was always her daughter who did everything and anything with her. My brothers only engaged with her once married with children, and then when they continued to work, left her to babysit until they were in their teens whilst parents went to work.
None of Mum's 5 children other than me have anything to do with her. It's like they've just "ghosted her". They don't even send christmas or birthday cards.
That's how Dementia impacts on families. It's not just the finances it's the logistics and being there for the person and that is hard for those coping with their loved ones and this disease.
It's hard. But I would say to anyone out there, my Mum never wanted this for me, I do it because I love her, but she never wanted this disease to impact on my life and if she knew this was happening to me now, she would be angry and tell me, "get on with your life".
But what can we do?
We are in a rock and a hard place ... and we have to carry on no matter what without support from the government.
This forum is an amazing place because we can share what is happening to us all and our families and how hard it is to deal with this.
Boris tried to put stuff in place for us but it seems this government have just ignored this whole isssue with social care.
Will, you need to reach out now to whatever your can to support your Dad.
All the very best.
And also engage with your local social services, even before your GP has put your Dad forward for assessment. You can contact your local social services and get them to also assess you Dad based on what he can do and can't do now without support. If he then needs support, they will tell you!
But also, they will ask, and this will happen to you going forward so just accept it and particulary as you have POA in place, you'll have to provide evidence of finances etc to understand what your Dad is elegible for and what he is not eligible for but also what they can provide to your as support.
