Caregiver: I quit!

QUIT QUIT QUIT... dont feel guilty. Care giving is often thankless! The very fact that you've been participating here, sharing your challenges shows you care in the midst of all the angst. Please be gentle and kind to yourself in your decision.

Who is paying the 10k ? The man or the conservator ? Hast to be the man

It was a one-time payment of $10K that covered all the legal battles and court expenses of setting up the conservatorship. There may have been some battling going on among the parties, which may have affected the price. There is an attorney who serves as conservator. I don't know how much he charges for the service. He has the man's spending cut down to the bare bones. The conservator takes care of all the bills. I believe the man gets about $125 a month for spending money. His girlfriend gets about the same for keeping the house clean. (She doesn't live with him.)

I forgot to say that the man paid the $10K out of his own money. Of course, the conservator had to handle it. :)

Seacoast, if you win in court, the Judge will order who pays what. In our case, mom failed the competency test and Judge ordered the $5K be paid from her funds. Conservators are sometimes awarded annual fees for service as well.

Ok, I have another question. If your going to hire some help to take care of Meds and food shopping and my dad doesn't want to pay cause he thinks he can do it himself by "using" a neighbor to get to the store. How do I pay these people with his money and him not getting pissed and removing me form his account ?

If you are conservator, you control his accounts. He would not personally have access to them except through you. If you are POA and he has not been deemed incompetent, he can dismiss you as POA and remove you from his account unless you are on as a joint owner of the account.

Sea, if you have POA and has been judged incompetent, doesn't that mean he can't change anything that he's put in place?

In your position, I would involve dad in hiring helpers (a girl to do the laundry and cook)--put it into whatever terms he can wrap his brain around. Invite the neighbors to meet the help. Show the neighbors your paperwork and explain what the new setup is. Get phone numbers from them and give them yours. Encourage them to let you know if there's a problem.

You can't stop him getting pissed off.

You need to go to his bank and ask to see whoever deals with this kind of situation. Bring with you the POA document and anything you have in writing about him being incompetent. Discuss with the bank personnel how best to deal with it, If you have POA and he is officially incompetent, you are in charge of his accounts. Again go to the professionals involved.

I took the POA document to my mothers bank and spoke with an accounts manager there which was who I was referred to when I called and explained the situation. She told me what they could and could not do and what I could and could not do. Tell them the medical information - that he cannot live alone and needs help and you need to use his money to hire help for him and he is resisting.

He has been deemed incompitant. But I don't think the bank would care. I have given then a copy of the DPOA, they did not want the neurological diagnosis report of the demetia. I don't think they want to get in the middle. Wondering what other people have done in s situation like this.

Have you asked them if he can change the accounts if he gets mad at you? It is not a question of them caring, It is a question of them cooperating with you in carrying out the responsibilities of the POA. The lawyer died. I think you need to get another one who deals with seniors. Are you pursuing getting conservatorship?

What did other people do? Several have written what they have done. Some people notify the authorities and walk away until the senior ends up in hospital from a fall or such and then the system says he cannot live alone and you work with the staff to get him the care he needs whether he likes it or not. That may mean putting him in a facility or laying down the condition to him that if he wants to go home he has to accept help. No one is saying that these times of transition are easy. They are not. And the caregiver often has to move from being in a child-parent relationship or an adult-adult relationship to being in a parent-child relationship where the caregiver is the parent, and the parent is the child because the parent can no longer look after themselves. You seem to be having trouble with that.