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Who do you have for your POA if your relatives don't want to do it? I had my daughter down as my POA and today she screamed at me that she does not want to do it. I have virtually no other relatives. I have some friends but I am not sure they want to be my POA. It is a big job and really no one wants to me my POA. So who would I get? Who does anyone get to be the POA.

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You create a Power of Attorney partly to protect yourself, but mainly to make life operationally straightforward for the people you assume will take responsibility for you once you're too gaga to look after yourself. By which time you won't really know or care what the heck is going on anyway.

I do not blame your daughter for declining this responsibility, and neither should you. It can be onerous, it is bound to be miserable when it's your demented mother you're acting for, and it is usually thankless.

If you can't think of anyone you trust with the financial POA job - and that trust has to meet a very high standard indeed, so it's no reflection on your social circle - look around at financial products for long term care planning and see if they don't include provision for dementia care. That should give you enough protection in case you fall victim to dementia.

For the medical/health/welfare aspects, make any firm wishes known to your doctor - in writing, signed and witnessed, if you like. You will then have to accept that anyone treating you is bound by professional ethics. Those ethics would include taking your known wishes into account, but clinical priorities may override them. But again, to be honest, if you're long past being able to object you're most unlikely to give a d*mn.

It's a bit like with insurance. We all go through a phase of wanting to insure virtually everything we care about - the vacuum cleaner, our pets' teeth - but once you think it through... What if the worst does happen? Insurance will only help you with the cost of the aftermath, it can't actually prevent the tragedy/disaster/mild nuisance. Sometimes it's much more sensible and proportionate simply to accept the risk.

So with POA. If you haven't got one and you lose your marbles, it will just mean extra paperwork for whoever is responsible for you - and that paperwork, plus funding professional administration of it, may cost your estate dear. But your POA won't stop you getting dementia, if you're going to. So it's not like you'll be sorry you didn't do it.

I have the great good fortune to have known a fully qualified Chartered Accountant since his birth, and to know him to be a young man of unimpeachable integrity. He has very sweetly agreed to accept financial POA for me, and now "all" I have to do is get on with the forms, and ensure that I opt for the simplest possible check-and-balance type arrangement.

The health and welfare bit is trickier. I was going to appoint my medically qualified child, but already discussion is creating faint emotional ripples so I will probably abandon the whole idea and leave it to fate.

So... nothing awful will happen simply because you don't create a POA. And for heaven's sake! - DO NOT give an enduring, durable or lasting power of attorney to someone you do not know well enough to trust implicitly. Better to be without than to put this extremely powerful legal instrument into the wrong hands.
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I don't have any family except widowed BIL whom I'm caring for, and my friends are older than me 70/80's. So realistically when my dementia progresses to the point of needing POA or the like there will be no one.
Because of this I have organised all my paperwork now, I have lodged DNR and Advanced Directive with my Dr. I've written a "This is me" based on the one I was asked to write for my BIL on his recent admittance to hospital. It lets people know about who I was before I lost my marbles, who and what was important to me then.
My will is written, plot and coffin paid for and Life Insurance in place to cover my funeral. The funeral is written out and there are Thank you cards printed for after the funeral. Plan A & B for the Wake (aware we do it differently in UK) depending on numbers attending. I hope that this way the strangers caring for me at the end of my days will have a knowledge of "Me."
I don't think that not wanting to be POA is uncaring. I'm my BIL's and frankly it is desperately hard. My BIL is relatively easy to care for most of the time, but I get distressed and anxious as to whether i've made the right choices for him.
I would not one to be in this position for anyone closer to me.
Not because I don't love them, simply I love them too much and our time together would be taken up in second guessing myself and my actions.
I spend 5-7 hrs visiting hospital now, 6 days out of 7, 9 times outof 10 I'm a "whipping boy" for my BIL. Yet still I fret about the time I'm not there.
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I'm very sorry you find yourself in this situation. Do you have a niece or nephew or grandchild you can entrust with this privilege. If not you can contact your Agency on Aging. They will get you in touch with a professional. In the meantime I suggest you put all of you wishes clearly in a living will. Not just DNR desires but be very specific on any procedures that you might not want done medically. Good luck
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Try a Geriatric Care Manager. Call the Area Agency on Aging they may have some other ideas.
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I'm kinda in the same boat. Although I am married my hubby has two different heart conditions...My son is severely disabled and I wouldn't trust my stepdaughter to pick out a pair of shoes for me - let alone make a medical or financial decision on my behalf. Maybe she'll have matured some by the time my golden years roll around but I'm not holding my breath!
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An attorney can be your POA and representative. If you don't have one, meet with one and document your wishes and they will act on your behalf.
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Your lawyer can do it -- I suggest the lawyer (aka attorney) who drew up your will.
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Is there any legal requirement for anyone to have a POA or a DPOA? IMCO as a kibitzer using someone s a POA is a matter of choice and convenience. If it becomes necessary to have an attorney in fact a court will appoint one {correct me if I am wrong}
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Finding someone with your philosophies is imperative. If you don't then in some places physicians may look to immediate family. Not all people are comfortable making decisions. In my family two of the three siblings were okay with decision making so appointing the one has discomfort isn't helpful. The niece/nephew option is definitely a possibility for someone like me with no children of my own. The private fiduciary is bonded, in insurance policy that pays you if the fiduciary misspends your funds, giving you a safety net (make sure the person is bonded).
So, you have choices, but my first and foremost personal opinion is ensure you and the agent have similar philosophies so the agent speaks your wishes and not the agent's wishes.
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We are facing the world sort of alone. No local family or relatives to act as POA's or our executors. We have a trusted lawyer who is also a elder affairs arrourney. Be forwarned, talk with the lawyer before choosing ask a lot of questions and ask more, put "it" in writing. Discuss fees and expenses etc. My sister appointed a family friend lawyer as executor and now we are discovering this lawyers practices. He has a partner handing her probate. She bills the estate $90.00 on very email.

Our lawyer, in contrast, corresponds with us using email. We have the options of packaged/bundled service or ala-cart service. being a POA is acting on a live persons behalf and at their direction. Be sure you have the POA in writng and detailed concerning what the person can do,
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