DM wants a riser-chair costing £4.5k! Advice v welcome

[Valleyofthedollymix]

DM is 82 with moderate dementia. It affects her mobility more than her cognitive abilities but I don't know how much this is to do with the dementia and how much is due to her lack of exercise over many years.

She is currently burning through finite funds by living in a large house with a very expensive live-in carer through an agency. After a lifetime of being careful with money, she's spending like Liberace and it's going to run out, especially since I think she'll live a long time. Frustratingly, the extravagance encouraged by the carer, for example endless new pairs of trousers and cashmere jumpers (one week she bought six). If we query this spending, it gets turned into a black mark against us - for someone with a failing memory, DM can keep a really good tally of the ways in which we've 'denied' her.

Anyway the latest was the carer organising for a bespoke riser recliner chair company to come round to demo. DM apparently 'fell in love' with the deluxe one and has chosen the fabric etc. It costs nearly £4600. This feels like an awful lot to me but apparently, it's tailor made for her spine, size etc.

Does anyone know if this is worth it? Of course, if it's a buy once buy the best situation and it'll change her life, fair enough, we'll find the funds. But I wouldn't spend that sort of money on anything without due diligence. I feel like we're being bounced into it. I'm also unsure of the wisdom of these chairs at all because might it exacerbate my mother's immobility?

So, if anyone has any knowledge on how much you need to spend and what's worth it, I'd be vvvv grateful.

How so ? The poster said she would have loved there to be no ‘inheritance’ and that implies nothing left. How does that fund private care ?

No direct experience but regarding spending how about (preferably in discussion with other people with capacity and dms best interests in mind - if you do it with other people transparently and take their views into account and document everything then it seems robust)

1. You set out a framework for making financial decisions based on your thoughts about your mum's pre dementia attitudes and priorities and 'what a financially responsible adult might think was reasonable', for instance 'top quality but infrequent purchases' or 'mid range value', 'get three quotes' type approach.
2. Set a budget for 'wants' / fun spends per week or month (she might be able to suggest a figure?).
3. Try to set a budget for 'needs' / living within means.

That seems a lot to pay for a carer but only £11.90 an hour and not even sure agency worker would get 100% as agency would get a cut.

@mrsm43s she does not have capacity though. She shouldn't be encouraged to burn through funds as she obviously lacks insight. This is basic safe guarding.

That poster didn’t say her friend’s mum has no opinion about what happened to her she said that a. It’s very difficult for someone who hasn’t known a person for years whether a person has capacity at any given point; and b. By way of example the GP totally misread her mother.

I don’t see any evidence that that poster’s friend or the OP or anyone on the thread isn’t taking their PoA seriously.

I learnt with my dad that, past a certain point, presenting him with multiple choices, so that I felt I was doing a good job as PoA, and he had agency in his life, simply overwhelmed and upset him. He didn’t have the lucidity to be able to quantify the different things and compare them and he didn’t want to be responsible for the decision.

You’ve got POA to protect her finances. Tell the carer to get lost and do what’s best for your mum and her finances.

OP said she’s assuming there will be nothing to inherit. DM has her current funds from one house and then there’s her own house to sell. So she’s not likely to be dependent on state care.

The OP stated in her opening post that DM had moderate dementia, which is a far cry from lost capacity. Lacking insight doesn’t mean she’s not capable of contributing to decisions made about her future and while making unwise decisions may be in some part down to the effects of dementia, it doesn’t mean she’s lost capacity. The OP is clearly in a very difficult situation, but she has an obligation to involve DM as far as possible in any decisions made about her future while she retains even limited understanding. A declaration as to whether DM has capacity or not is a legal issue and can only be made by someone qualified to make that determination.

I was replying to another poster about their own situation - not relevant to OP.

If her mum still has the capacity to contribute to decisions about her care, then OP can’t disregard her wishes or act independently of them. So if it’s likely that DM doesn’t want to change carers then OP needs to approach things with care. Having power of attorney doesn’t mean you can do as you like with no recourse to what the person wants.

Cashmere jumpers wouldn’t last 24hours if she decides to move into a carehome.

You can’t make that call. Moderate dementia involves quite a significant degree of impairment. A person will have capacity to make some decisions and not others. They can have confusion about where they are, what day it is, appropriate clothing, they can wander off, have delusions, delirium, compulsive behaviour.

OP’s DM for example cannot run her own bank accounts or use the internet or mobile, but she can have opinions about where she wants to live - which OP is respecting.

There will be strict eligibility criteria and it's imo unlikely that someone who is physically able to rise from a regular chair would get one. Also as others have said dementia in the long term is a contraindication for safety reasons.,

Actually "basic safeguarding" is crystal clear that unwise decisions do not imply lack of capacity nor does a particular medical condition. I suggest you bone up on your safeguarding training (if any) again.

Nope - not an issue. Had she needed to go into a care home (instead of having carers at home), her property would have been sold to pay for such care. I

Once you start this, don't be surprised if the carer resigns.
I think you might find she's been taking advantage and if that's the case, she'll be spooked by this sudden change.

Quite!

Her home would be sold to fund private care

Make what call ? Every case is different. I wouldn’t disagree with anything you’ve said but you seem to be picking up on comments made to other posters. In this case I was replying to a poster who stated that DM had lost capacity. I was pointing out that moderate dementia doesn’t necessarily mean loss of capacity, and that legally capacity, or lack of it, can only be assessed by someone suitably qualified to make that determination. Where capacity is limited, the attorney has an obligation to make every effort to involve the person in the decision making process as far as their understanding allows.

Inability to run your own bank account or manage your own bank cards does though.

One has to distinguish between unwise decisions and ones that are made from mental impairment. Eg: my father’s desire to go for a walk in long johns and slippers.

No it doesn’t, The mental health act which underpins the regulations around lasting power of attorney clearly states that determination of capacity is a legal issue and outside the scope of an attorney, so they cannot overrule what they consider to be an unwise decision on the part of the donor, on the assumption that the person doesn’t have the capacity to make it.

She has also eschewed a lifetime of obsessive dieting (and judging others' weight) in favour of cramming as much sugar as she can get. Boxes of biscuits, large slabs of chocolate, gu puddings... she eats in this bingey, grabby way that feels like the shackles coming off after a lifetime of denial.

Apologies if this topic was raised ages ago (I can’t read through the entire thread) but the sugar consumption could be due to dementia.

I read recently that people with dementia often crave sugar, and it’s linked with the brain working so hard to function properly that it craves sugar for a hit of energy.

I also suspect your DM gifts the carer some of the cashmere scarves and fripperies she buys.

What you said was “moderate dementia is a far cry from lost capacity” - which is not true. Although we can agree that everyone is different (they may have different types of dementia for a start).

A legal assessment of capacity is only relevant when a person is contemplating something like a legal contract or medical procedure etc.

Otherwise the people around a person including family, carers, medics are making assessments of that person’s capacity for different things on a daily basis.

Is her consultant aware of the behaviour with money and food? It’s potentially linked to the dementia

Jumping in here to say that DMIL had both dementia and limited mobility with experience of falls. DH asked the SW (or OT?) whether a riser chair would be beneficial for her. They said no, because in her case all that would happen is that it would tip her onto the floor faster, LOL. the lesson here is to consult an expert before parting with any cash.
Good luck sorting it all out. Been there, and it's no walk in the park.