Can a caregiver take legal action to get mom's POA changed?

My mother-in-law is 82 and was diagnosed with dementia 12 months ago. She is in assisted living (we moved her there last year) and recently we discovered her younger son was taking money from her. My husband and I are the primary family contacts, but we do not have durable power of attorney (noone does as my mother-in-law has refused to discuss this to-date). My mother-in-law is on a fixed income so every dollar counts, if the younger son continues to pressure her for money what recourse do we have to stop him?

Tough: same thing happend to us. I finally insisted that Mom create a living trust and make me the PoA. (sib was draining the accounts...Mom in deep denial...sib never paid back the "loans"....Mom would still be giving away money today!)
I am noticing so many of my friends going through the same thing lately...sibs going through the parent's funds as if it were theirs.
I suppose you could talk to your b-i-l and let him know that you know what he is doing. If the parent is giving money freely, not sure if there is anything you can do. But, if you become the PoA, no one else can access her accouts. Just keep good records of expenses.
I really wish I didn't have to do this...but my Mom needed protection.

Thanks for the advice, the whole situation is just sad.
My husband sent out an email to all the sibs (there are 4 boys) with as little emotion as possible and laid out the provable facts to everyone. Last line of the email was "Please stop taking money from mom". Guess we'll revisit the durable power-of-attorney issue with her as we would rather not have to seek conservatorship if we can avoid it.

We have a good friend that this happened to as well. He lives out of state but makes many trips back home to help his mom with her property. He found out, several years ago, that his brother was taking large amounts of money from his mom. To this day, he is still heartsick that his brother would take money from a mother who was struggling to get by. He also feels like he no longer knows his brother. It really divides a family and unfortunately, outs one's "true colors."
My message to all children: keep your hands off your parent's hard-earned money. They will need every cent of it in the future.

get poa- talk to doc if she is not capable to handle finances- go to soc. sec. office to becme representative payee-my mom used to live with my brother- now she lives with me he told me not to go thru soc. sec. that they would be all up in our business- so i didnt- he said he would write me a check each month as it gets automaticlay depostied into her and his account- well he kept her soc. sec. check when she was living with me- so i went to the soc. sec. office and they called her doc. and she said mom was not capable of taking care of money so i am representative payee. went to the bank with the paper from the soc. sec. office and opened a new account for mom. this month my brother was supposd to come over with a check and he called and said that he was sick so he didint- well he called couple days later and said he noticed the soc. sec. was taken out of his account and could i please write him a check for the money cuz he had already written checks on moms soc. sec. and didint want them to bounce- knew i couldnt trust him. -

My husband and his sister were both Power of Attorneys up until last Feb., 2010. My husband was taken off as POA and his sister has the reins now. Their mother is 87 years old with dementia but refuses to go to the doctor. My husband has asked his mother for a copy of the living trust and she tells him to ask his sister because she takes care of everything. His mother still writes very few checks but mostly the sister does. It looks like she signs the checks with her mothers signature instead of her own and whos to say where the money is going. Anyway, my husband calls his sister (they live approx 300 miles apart, as does his mother), for a copy of the trust and she keeps putting him off with one reason or another. What can he do; this is making him sick because his hands are tied. If he actually goes to see his mom and starts talking about her trust, etc., she becomes very irate. Why does she have one of the siblings over the other taking charge when she knows they don't get along that well? My husband can't get any cooperation out of the attorneys either. The previous attorney's were great until everything changed this past February. The old attorney retired. What to do?