hoarding and poor judgement, should I worry?

[crispandfruity]

Hi, my dad is 62. His own mother suffered with dementia and died when she was in her 60's.

Over the past 10 or so years he's let his house slip into a life of grime state. He's really defensive about it. Recently he's made some really bad decisions, and lost a lot of money after falling for cold calling scams

His memory isn't great - but then again he's always struggled with birthdays etc.

I'm worried that his mental capacity is declining. Should I talk to him and what the hell do I say?

Is there anyone who can support you with this? Siblings? An uncle or aunt? A close family friend who cans ee what is happening to your dad. It is so very hard. The person who is affected often does not see it.

My mum thinks she is fine. My siblings are in denial and not local so don't see it but I have two aunts who know what I am dealing with and that helps.

How much practical help can you give your dad?

Sorry that you are dealing with this - it is so very hard.

TBH, I think that talking to the person about memory issues is very rarely helpful. The best port of call is to arrange to call their GP and say you know they can't discuss your dads health with you, but you are concerned about his mental health because of these specific things. They can usually manage to screen someone by calling them in for an 'MOT' or 'medication review' or whatever without making a big thing of it. Then you can make decisions from there

My mum has similar issues.
Recently I registered two Lasting Powers of Attorney with the Office of the Public Guardian, one for Finance and Property, the other for Health and Welfare (you can prepare these docs yourself and get them signed by your dad's GP for v little cost). Currently I'm having a big battle with her bank to get the LPA for finance accepted, despite the validity of her LPAs. The bank has treated me in a v bad, rude and inappropriate way, so I put a complaint in and hope they are going to see sense; I didn't believe it was going to be this difficult.
I clean mum's flat and do her shopping. She's incapable.
We haven't got a dementia diagnosis yet. She is forgetful. Sometimes she has good days and then really bad days. I've asked her GP to get her an appointment to diagnose her by a specialist - you get better services, such as day care centres, if the person has a dementia diagnosis - this is currently the situation in my mum's borough. It wasn't important to get her diagnosed before, but this makes it important. She goes to day care 3 days a week and it's great as she socialises and gets attention.
I've asked her to consider sheltered accommodation. We might try to move her next year, somewhere nearer to me so that I can help her. She doesn't want to go to a care home as she's scared.