He doesn't like waiting in line at the bank like everyone else, No tolerance. I've told him to write down when I show him how to work the ATM but he doesn't. Does anyone have any ideas how I should go about this?
It could be that he doesn't trust himself or maybe doesn't trust the atm. 92 year young MIL had a cell phone, texted, but refused to use her debit card or an atm. It took a nasty rainy day to get her to do a transaction thru the drive up window. Sometimes they are completely set in their ways and you're not going to get them to budge.
There was a time that I got frustrated because my Mom could not seem to understand why she could not allow my disabled nephew to make certain decisions. She believed an 18 yr old over me. She was 80. I realized later that Mom had lost her ability to reason. She asked me to start writing her checks because her handwriting had gotten unreadable. Eventually, I took the check book over because she was having problems adding and subtracting. At 83 she had a head injury. That injury was the start of her decline.
I know you want to keep him independent but its also frustrating for them when they can't do it. Short-term memory is the first thing to go. Mom could read but she had no idea what it meant. I think its time to give up the ATM machine. Maybe get him a prepaid credit card where he doesn't need a pin #. Maybe give him a few bucks in his pocket.
My mom has NEVER used an ATM. She doesn't trust them. She also refuses to use a debit card. She will write a check, and it gets processed at the register, and handed back to her. She doesn't understand that the debit card is the same as a check - and that you write the transaction down in your check register. She has always used credit cards no problem and she pays the balance in full so she's not racking up debt. But then again credit cards are not a "new" thing for her. She has had them for probably 60 years.
Ditto with Cali on checks. If he can’t manage an atm, I seriously doubt if he can deal with a checkbook. I agree that he most likely can’t manage any of his financial responsibilities any longer. Sad but true for some seniors.
Geeeeez, not my mom. She knew her money to the penny! Once she told the bank they were off by 30 cents! Guess what? They were and credited her account. Hahaha I told her she missed her calling and should have been a CPA.
Honest as can be! A long time ago when the new twenty dollar bills came out she was shopping in Walmart. She was only buying a couple of items. My mom never spent a penny more than she had too. The depression era stayed with her.
Anyway, she handed the cashier a twenty. She received change for a hundred. The twenties kind of looked similar to the hundred dollar bill. She smiled at the woman and said, “Honey, you made a mistake and gave me change for a hundred.”
The woman was embarrassed but thanked my mom profusely saying the money would have come out of her pocket had mom not returned it to her.
The Walmart manager was walking by and heard the transaction. He gave my mom a $50 gift certificate for being honest. I thought that was very sweet of him. My mom tells him that he did not have to pay her for being honest! He insisted and then she thanked him.
She was extremely talented and sold items at craft fairs for many years. She recorded every penny spent and every penny earned. She is very smart, can do math in her head quicker than someone with a calculator. Her brother was the same way.
It’s so interesting how age related decline effects many and totally skips over others. Same with my 98 year old old cousin. She remembers things I forgot about! Same thing, super smart!
I don’t know. I think part of it is genes. Part of it is the nuns that taught us. I had some of the same nuns that taught my mom. They were tough! We didn’t get away with a thing. You had to be smart to stay in the school. The kids that didn’t make good grades were asked to leave and attend public school.
These sound like signs of cognitive decline, and you have to act. Dad is vulnerable. He's lost retention and short term memory skills and likely his ability to follow instructions, even if written .. which he'll likely lose. He could be taking out too much money, losing money, over drawn, scammed, and a host of other financial mishaps.
Get him to add your name as an authorized user on his bank account/s so you can monitor transactions; do that in the bank by both of you signing papers. Tell him it's for his safety in the event you need to help him. Be sure to sign up for online access so you can monitor.
Tell Dad to write checks from now on, and not use the ATM card. You may have to tell him a creative story and take the card .. like ATM charges are out of sight, so don't use it.
Put an online alert on his account that if his account reaches a certain balance, you get the alert.
You need to check his bills and if he's paying them on time and properly. It's time you make a list of his bills and due dates. You likely need to take these bill payments over, too.
Last, but not least, you should take dad to the dr. asap, and go in the dr's ofc with him to report your observations and concerns (even if you have to do that privately with the dr). *This is the time to get dad to sign papers at drs' and dds' offices to authorize you to speak to them on his behalf regarding his meds and care. Tell him it's for emergencies (it is!)
Dad is vulnerable and has dementia soooooo.....the OP probably can’t just get him to add her to the bank account. He needs to be fully competent and it doesn’t sound like he is. Her dad may not be able to write checks out anymore and he can’t use checks everywhere anyway so that’s not a total solution here either.
I’d just keep a reasonable amount cash in a safe place in the house (in the safe if you have one) and distribute it to him in small amounts depending on why he needs money. I wish my mom would do that for my dad since he keeps losing his bank card!
This is what I was thinking too. More sensible than him using the atm. I have seen people ask strangers how to use the atm. Wow! Not a smart thing to do. Well, not here in New Orleans anyway! We have fairly high crime and that would be a disaster if they asked the wrong person to help.
We have also had the incidents where employees of restaurants and gas stations using a person’s debit card number to make online purchases. Some criminals are just plain dumb! They have the merchandise shipped to their home address. They get caught!
I think an atm card isn’t a bad idea for this individual.
MrsGumby1208, time to use a "therapeutic fib"..... tell him "customers over the age of 75 need to come inside the bank, this is a new safety feature". If Dad mentions that to the Teller, stand behind Dad and shake your head "yes" and "wink", hopefully the Teller will follow your lead.
You can't expect a person with dementia to remember or to retain ANY instructions given to them. Period. Your father is obviously past the point where he's able to use an ATM card. Cash may not be a great option for him either, for obvious reasons.
You say your father is living at home.........would that be alone? If so, now is the time to read up about the subject of Alzheimer's and dementia so you understand what's in store for you and for him, and to look into care options for him. Things aren't going to get better from here on out........they are only going to get worse, unfortunately, until he's able to do just about nothing for himself.
Yes.... Thank you I have read up about Alzheimer's, and am.pretty much aware of the baggage that goes with it, Be that as it may, I have sorted this out for him now but need to give my.brother the heads up as he is POA. I know you mean well but a lot of your answers and advice seem.a little abrupt not just to me but to others on this format. Maybe you're a longsuffering caregiver but I'm only just sharing my observations of my father and asking others with similar situations. As I'm also aware that Dementia and Cognitive decline varies in elders in different ways, I have researched the different stages of dementia and what to expect from here on. My father s knows he's going downhill, and eventually he will have to be put into care. Maybe I'm just venting or overly sensitive. My bad
The drive thru is closed, I go to the walk up one, a elder is trying to get the ATM to work, over and over again, she keeps turning around and looking at me, so finally I ask "Do you need help"? "Oh Yes, this machine doesn't work"...so I look at her card, it is from another bank....might be the reason why.
I live in Florida, the land of seniors, going into the grocery store is another opportunity for greatness, those debit/credit card machines are like trying to figure out how to split an atom..at least... for them.
I would suggest that he go inside the bank, what's the rush, he doesn't have anything to do anyway.
The card being from another bank is not the reason it wasn’t working. You can use debit cards any almost any machine anywhere in the country, you just pay an exorbant fee.
You might try to get him to use the cash back feature at a point-of-sale (POS) instead. Most drug stores, groceries, and walmart allow you to get cash back when making a sale. The POS machine displays a "cash back" or similar prompt, then asks how much (often this is a list of standard amounts, 20, 40, 60, 80, 100), then shows to total of the sale and cash back amounts. It wouldn't allow your father to avoid a line, but maybe the line in the drug store would be shorter?
Mom didn't have problems working the ATM and she usually went thru the bank's drive thru lane, but if the bank was closed I felt my mother was safer getting cash back at the walgreens and walking outside under the security cameras to her car. The smaller parking lot meant she could park near the door and anyone who wanted to jump her had less hiding places and less time before she left. Walgreens only required a single item purchase, so Mom would get an ice cream and $80 cash back. One of Mom's friends with macular degeneration often got cash back at a grocery store she frequented by asking the manager (who went to the same church) to operate the POS for her.
Yes My Dad insists on writing out instruction of any sort be it Mobile phone instructions or other He just can't use one no.matter how many times I showed him. I even took photos of each screen in the process of how to use his mobile. He just uses his landline. It is as you said an.ongoing battle. Thank you for your help
We wrote out a few key steps for Mom and put it inside a clear case on her phone so all she had to do was look at the back of her phone. This worked for a while. These simple reminder "directions" don't work when she insists on being the one to write them out however, she isn't able to really do it so that has been an ongoing battle of sorts. Sometimes simply doing it for her and saying "this is what I do for myself maybe it will help you too" or something like that and not even giving her the option or time to think about doing it for herself works too.
I know you want to keep him independent but its also frustrating for them when they can't do it. Short-term memory is the first thing to go. Mom could read but she had no idea what it meant. I think its time to give up the ATM machine. Maybe get him a prepaid credit card where he doesn't need a pin #. Maybe give him a few bucks in his pocket.
Geeeeez, not my mom. She knew her money to the penny! Once she told the bank they were off by 30 cents! Guess what? They were and credited her account. Hahaha I told her she missed her calling and should have been a CPA.
Honest as can be! A long time ago when the new twenty dollar bills came out she was shopping in Walmart. She was only buying a couple of items. My mom never spent a penny more than she had too. The depression era stayed with her.
Anyway, she handed the cashier a twenty. She received change for a hundred. The twenties kind of looked similar to the hundred dollar bill. She smiled at the woman and said, “Honey, you made a mistake and gave me change for a hundred.”
The woman was embarrassed but thanked my mom profusely saying the money would have come out of her pocket had mom not returned it to her.
The Walmart manager was walking by and heard the transaction. He gave my mom a $50 gift certificate for being honest. I thought that was very sweet of him. My mom tells him that he did not have to pay her for being honest! He insisted and then she thanked him.
She was extremely talented and sold items at craft fairs for many years. She recorded every penny spent and every penny earned. She is very smart, can do math in her head quicker than someone with a calculator. Her brother was the same way.
It’s so interesting how age related decline effects many and totally skips over others. Same with my 98 year old old cousin. She remembers things I forgot about! Same thing, super smart!
I don’t know. I think part of it is genes. Part of it is the nuns that taught us. I had some of the same nuns that taught my mom. They were tough! We didn’t get away with a thing. You had to be smart to stay in the school. The kids that didn’t make good grades were asked to leave and attend public school.
Get him to add your name as an authorized user on his bank account/s so you can monitor transactions; do that in the bank by both of you signing papers. Tell him it's for his safety in the event you need to help him. Be sure to sign up for online access so you can monitor.
Tell Dad to write checks from now on, and not use the ATM card. You may have to tell him a creative story and take the card .. like ATM charges are out of sight, so don't use it.
Put an online alert on his account that if his account reaches a certain balance, you get the alert.
You need to check his bills and if he's paying them on time and properly. It's time you make a list of his bills and due dates. You likely need to take these bill payments over, too.
Last, but not least, you should take dad to the dr. asap, and go in the dr's ofc with him to report your observations and concerns (even if you have to do that privately with the dr). *This is the time to get dad to sign papers at drs' and dds' offices to authorize you to speak to them on his behalf regarding his meds and care. Tell him it's for emergencies (it is!)
We have also had the incidents where employees of restaurants and gas stations using a person’s debit card number to make online purchases. Some criminals are just plain dumb! They have the merchandise shipped to their home address. They get caught!
I think an atm card isn’t a bad idea for this individual.
You say your father is living at home.........would that be alone? If so, now is the time to read up about the subject of Alzheimer's and dementia so you understand what's in store for you and for him, and to look into care options for him. Things aren't going to get better from here on out........they are only going to get worse, unfortunately, until he's able to do just about nothing for himself.
Good luck
I have read up about Alzheimer's, and am.pretty much aware of the baggage that goes with it, Be that as it may, I have sorted this out for him now but need to give my.brother the heads up as he is POA.
I know you mean well but a lot of your answers and advice seem.a little abrupt not just to me but to others on this format. Maybe you're a longsuffering caregiver but I'm only just sharing my observations of my father and asking others with similar situations. As I'm also aware that Dementia and Cognitive decline varies in elders in different ways, I have researched the different stages of dementia and what to expect from here on. My father s knows he's going downhill, and eventually he will have to be put into care. Maybe I'm just venting or overly sensitive. My bad
I live in Florida, the land of seniors, going into the grocery store is another opportunity for greatness, those debit/credit card machines are like trying to figure out how to split an atom..at least... for them.
I would suggest that he go inside the bank, what's the rush, he doesn't have anything to do anyway.
Mom didn't have problems working the ATM and she usually went thru the bank's drive thru lane, but if the bank was closed I felt my mother was safer getting cash back at the walgreens and walking outside under the security cameras to her car. The smaller parking lot meant she could park near the door and anyone who wanted to jump her had less hiding places and less time before she left. Walgreens only required a single item purchase, so Mom would get an ice cream and $80 cash back. One of Mom's friends with macular degeneration often got cash back at a grocery store she frequented by asking the manager (who went to the same church) to operate the POS for her.
Is he inside the bank at least. If not, then he is vulnerable for any passerby to take advantage of the situation.