Is she competent or not?

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Jan

Registered User
Jun 16, 2003
4
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My mother has been diagnosed as having moderate Alzheimer's. Here are some of the doctor's comments in his report:
1. "is an 83 year old woman with moderate Alzheimer's disease and behavioural disturbances including auditory hallucinations and associated agitation."
2. "I do not believe she could learn to use a Life Line reliably."
3. "She new the correct date but not the day of the month. Similarly, while she knew the correct year she did not know the correct season."
4. "There was no evidence of psychomotor agitation or retardation."
5. "She was only able to recall two out of three objects after three minutes.
6. "Concentration was mildly impaired. she had a lot of difficulties with constructional praxis and writing. Word list generation was dramatically reduced."
7. " She demonstrated ideomotor dyspraxia using body parts as objects and could not correct."
8. "She scored 17 out of 30 on a formal Mini-Mental State Examination."
This report is two months old and there are some legal documents for here to sign. She seems good at times and there are times when she is confused & disoriented and claims she hears voices in the walls. I am trying to decide if I should trust her to sign or have her retested for competency at this time. Your opinion would be of great help.
 

Charlie

Registered User
Apr 1, 2003
161
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Is she competent or not...

Hi Jan,

I reread you post today and was trying to work out how to help.

It may help if you ask your doctors advice. If depends on the nature of the documents. If it invovles anything like insurance you want to make sure you are covered as if it comes to claiming Insurance companies will work very hard to look for a way of avoiding a payout.

I think that the Enduring Power of Attorney may help. This is very important for people suffering from dementia and needs to be signed before the illness progress. EPA has great benefits for all concerned as it can be very complicated to obtain this at the latter stages. If you do not have EPA, you may want to look into it. A good start is the following factsheet:

http://www.alzheimers.org.uk/After_diagnosis/Sorting_out_your_money/info_epa.htm

Hope that helps
Charlie
 

Jan

Registered User
Jun 16, 2003
4
0
Thanks for replying. I didn't think I was going to hear from anyone since it was some time ago.

The documents are the sale of shares she had in a private corporation. However, my brother-in-law has been very influential with her decision making & wanted to get her to sign so that there is no dispute from us later on since we are disagreeing. We believe that she is not aware of what she is signing though my brother-in-law and his lawyer feel she is competent. She will not consent to an assessment & my brother-in-law is also not willing to have her assessed.

There is much more if you want me to pm you with it. It seems that things like this bring out the worst in people.
 

Charlie

Registered User
Apr 1, 2003
161
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Is she copetent or not...

Hi Jan,

I am no legal begal, but in my opinion this is exactly one of the protections that an EPA offers. It would protect your mother and the EPA can be shared between concerned parties to ensure that this kind of thing does not happen. Hopefully you can sort out these differences, I really wish you luck. It may be worth calling the helpline for advice.

Kind Regards
Charlie
 

Jan

Registered User
Jun 16, 2003
4
0
I sent you a private message to explain a little more and though I agree with your advice, there is no way this can be done in time since my brother-in-law opposes any interventiion from us & she really has no ideas of her own. He has been slowly making her rely on his thoughts &, he is a doctor to boot.
 

Lorraineg

Registered User
Nov 30, 2011
5
0
Bristol, England
My mother is nearly 82 and of similar condition.

She has had a brain scan and was diagnosed with severe Alzheimer's we were worried because our council house was in my mother's sole name. The council changed the names to me and my sister however we are being made to pay £200 more then we were before even though it is the same circumstances. We were told by the council nothing would change however it did and we realized once bill's started to come in that they had given us incorrect advice they apologized but that was no help to us. We asked if we could transfer the house back to mum but we were told she is incapable of signing however they accepted her signature to transfer a month ago. She also has hallucinations from the minute she gets up to the minute she goes to bed but I know she cannot make decisions anymore by the way she acts and responds to things she also will not see any of the family and will not let my sister who have always been close to her do anything for her. Me and my sister live with mum, if we find she goes on about something continually we print it out on the printer things like the doctor has not been called etc and it do help and you find her reading it when she starts hearing voices. I would not trust my mum to sign a form as I know she do not know what she is doing.



My mother has been diagnosed as having moderate Alzheimer's. Here are some of the doctor's comments in his report:
1. "is an 83 year old woman with moderate Alzheimer's disease and behavioural disturbances including auditory hallucinations and associated agitation."
2. "I do not believe she could learn to use a Life Line reliably."
3. "She new the correct date but not the day of the month. Similarly, while she knew the correct year she did not know the correct season."
4. "There was no evidence of psychomotor agitation or retardation."
5. "She was only able to recall two out of three objects after three minutes.
6. "Concentration was mildly impaired. she had a lot of difficulties with constructional praxis and writing. Word list generation was dramatically reduced."
7. " She demonstrated ideomotor dyspraxia using body parts as objects and could not correct."
8. "She scored 17 out of 30 on a formal Mini-Mental State Examination."
This report is two months old and there are some legal documents for here to sign. She seems good at times and there are times when she is confused & disoriented and claims she hears voices in the walls. I am trying to decide if I should trust her to sign or have her retested for competency at this time. Your opinion would be of great help.
 
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