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.

It seems possible that the carer does this shopping for an easy life?

The carer should not have access to the credit cards.
That's the issue.

It's also not the carer's role to 'have an easy life'.
She shouldn't be spending the money of a client with dementia when her family are unhappy about it.

I hope the OP has had a wake up call and decided to put the brakes on this by cutting up the cards, applying for new ones, and taking control of the spending.

I get full PIP and used to work for the disability benefits office.
It doesn't matter what your income is and it pisses me off that there is a perception that rich people can't be disabled.
She needs it for her dementia, not just to fund a chair.
FFS, the regular ignorance and disablism on MN is horrific.

if mother can afford it, why not if it makes her happy?

Because P0A is there for a reason- for when someone has lost capacity to make their own decisions. Your logic is absolutely sound when applied to someone with that capacity, but this doesn’t apply here. Take the example someone gave upthread about their father with dementia who would keep eating oranges because he’d forgotten he’d just had one, eventually making himself ill. So people hid food from him; they didn’t take the view “if that’s what he fancies, let him eat it.” As a pp rightly said, if this is a symptom of the disease, then OP needs to look at it.

I think how the OP’s mum was before is relevant here. If, like my own mother, she has always been parsimonious and penny pinching, then it’s reasonable to assume that the change to reckless spending behaviour is down to the dementia. And it’s OP who needs to ensure that the money is there to pay for care longer term. And it’s a hellishly difficult call. A financial advisor once said to me, “I don’t want to sound like I’m asking you when you think your mother will die…..”; I laughed grimly and said he was, but I knew there was no way round it! I’m in a similar (but less difficult) position to the OP and that’s the nub of the problem. My mother could be dead within the year; she could last another 15. If your life needs are costing £30/40/60k for each of those years, the former is a very different scenario from the latter in financial terms. And OP will be the person who faces the stress of managing that money and, when it runs out, convincing social services that her mother has complex needs that require the cash strapped local authority to pitch in. It’s easy to judge and shout “inheritance grabber” when you aren’t in that position….

Carers Allowance is £71 a week.
A daily live in carer is anything between £120 - 300 a day.

PIP is not payable after state pension age.

Attendance Allowance is £68.10 a week.

These are carers who are paid a rate for a full day, not an hourly rate.

The expectation is that they will be able to sleep overnight.

There would be no need for two carers unless the client needed care at night.

I used to do it privately and charged £100 a day ten years ago. I was self employed.

What strikes me me most about @Valleyofthedollymix posts is the judgmental language and tone oozing from every post and resentment that her mother has so much money she doesn't 'deserve' when OP wasn't lavished with it herself

"inherited money"

"not a pension or money she's earnt"

"most of it came from inheriting a very large house (larger even than the one she's currently living in)"

"they were so parsimonious growing up - like I got no maintenance money at university, we never went on holiday, we barely got given birthday presents"

"the more crap that gets bought from the internet, the more decluttering will fall to me"

"yes it is her money, but money she's inherited and I don't think her hardworking ancestors would want it pissed away like this"

"it just feels incredibly wasteful and consumerist"

"we can all recognise that high you can get from an internet delivery (which in my case is followed by a sense of disgust)"

"I don't know that I can forgive her lack of compassion towards my dad"

I think @Valleyofthedollymix - difficult as it may may - needs to separate her own deep rooted feelings of judgment and resentment with what's in her mother's interests and happiness

The carer is being, at the very least, unprofessional and quite possibly grooming your mother who is vulnerable. If you decide to change carer, be prepared that she will stay in contact with your mother and continue to exert influence because your mother considers her a friend and you’re the nasty, unfair daughter. The rot may have already set in.

Yes, I had to do this for mum. I’d not dealt with the finances for mum before, but had had to provide copies of the health and welfare LPA to deal with hospital, GP and other organisations. It was a nightmare because some wanted authorised copies, which can be expensive. When I came to deal with the bank, they advised that they no longer needed a full paper copy as the YouGov website provides a service for the attorney to open an account and upload details of the LPA’s from online records. You can then generate a code to give each organisation who need to view the LPA, and each time it’s viewed the service records who has accessed it and the date and time. It’s a vast improvement.

How about ... No.

You need to be PERSONALLY caring for someone for 35 hours a week or more to get carers allowance which is £76.75p !!!

How in the world!?!?

It sounds as though OP has both because she’s already dealing with the healthcare professionals involved. They would need to be sure there was an LPA in place before they engage.

Yes, if DM were having full overnight care there would be a different carer for that. You can’t work a full day shift and then a full night shift.

DM would probably qualify for Attendance Allowance with dementia and mobility issues, and it would help with care costs. Local Authorities advise care clients to claim everything they are entitled to by way of benefits because the financial care assessment assumes that they already are. DM is 82 so care allowance wouldn’t be payable unless someone was claiming it for her before she reached state pension age. Same with PIP - it’s a working age benefit so you can only continue to claim beyond retirement age if you were claiming it when you reached 66.

I’ve just read back through all of the OP’s posts and I don’t see anything of the kind. What I see is someone with responsibilities conferred by a lasting power of attorney and who is ultimately responsible for her DM’s money being spent wisely. Which at the moment it isn’t. She’s in a difficult situation because the dementia has robbed her DM of the ability to recognise the value of money, and she’s being encouraged to spend by a carer who doesn’t seem to understand the effects of dementia, or the effects of the spending habits on the finite funding available - which I find odd, considering her own job depends on it. The donors’ best interests must be at the heart of every decision the attorney makes, and as far as I can see, this is what the OP is trying to achieve. I can’t see any judgement here except your own.

It's unprofessional to say the least! Maybe just give carer cash instead?a fixed amount.

We had a similar issue with my MIL. Frugal all her life but ended up with not much left as she was constantly giving money to any charity coming her way due to her dementia.She is now in a live-in caring facility as she could no longer stay at home even with carers coming 3 times a day . Your mother has dementia and she needs a Power of Attorney (one for health and one for financial matters) , It looks like she needs safeguarding.

The carer would be the one to claim carers allowance, but she’s undoubtedly earning over the threshold of £139 after allowable deductions to do so. OP has indicated that she works, so the same would apply, and she would have to be caring for her DM for at least 35 hours a week. If DM has dementia and mobility problems she would likely qualify for the higher rate of Attendance Allowance, £101.75 weekly. Would help to mitigate care costs and make existing funding go a bit further.

Agreed. OP is clearly very concerned about funding DM’s care for the next 10 years or more potentially. At the current rate it will cost a million for 10 years care, not accounting for inflation.

As PoA OP has a formal responsibility to manage DM’s money in her best interests and she is fully accountable for the spending of her funds.

I have a spreadsheet of spending on my dad’s behalf and no-one could say there’s fripperies on there. Which is not to say there is no money for his enjoyment - there is but responsibly and accountably used.

OP’s point about her DM’s previous spending habits is not because she resented them but just to show how out of character the current pattern, thus indicative of dementia + enablement by an irresponsible carer.

OP already has lasting power of attorney, but if her mother still has capacity she has to respect her wishes when making decisions on her behalf.

Thanks @Rosscameasdoody - I was taken aback by that post. It feels a bit selective.

That said, I do have some unresolved issues around my relationship with my parents, as do all my siblings. Maybe everyone does. It's been triggered by having children of my own and the way DH and I have chosen to parent them, as well as the attitude my parents have shown towards their grandchildren. And I do work very hard to separate these feelings as part of me just wants to run away and leave my mother to it - it's really not about any inheritance (I've long assumed it'll be eaten up), it's about the duty I feel to look after her.

I'm glad you managed to get an OT. Your DM won't like it or changing carers but this carer is not professional. This point from your other post screams out to change the carer ASAP. Even if she isn't dishonest she is very unprofessional:

I've spoken to the carer, who was pretty rude to me. I think she thinks we're penny pinching evil kids. As I keep saying, it may be that this is the right chair for her but we're not getting it without due diligence. Apparently the 'chair consultant' who came round was 'lovely'. I did keep pointing out that he's a salesman so of course he is. She then told me that it was up to me 'to break the terrible news' to DM that we weren't getting it immediately

What may help you in terms of dealing with your DM's upset is that you are now effectively her guardian. POA isn't to enable you to help DM but also to protect and you need to be able to account for spending - esp if she does need residential care and the money runs out. POA means you have taken on that responsibility.

Its really hard when the person who has parented you needs you to be the parent but that is how you need to look at it. If your teenager was given a trust fund would you be happy for them to run out and by bag loads of clothes they never wore or would you protect the bulk for the future but allow them a bit of a luxury allowance? So spending which is luxury but which makes her life happier or more comfortable is fine, spending which is utterly irrational and contrary to her character is not.

Hi OP.

So I think personally I would be having a word with the carer about the frivolous spending that mother is doing and would speak to her about the chair situation as she should never have overstepped and got a sales person in to sell her a chair if she doesn't have capacity. I would actually even speak the carer’s company regarding the chair situation as that is bad.

I used to work for Willowbrook (they own recliner factory). The sales people are not allowed yo go into someone house that has no capacity without the POA or next of kin there. Secondly. whatever youve been told about it being custom made to her spine etc is b**hit. They are made according to height of client and how firm they want the chair to be. So find a second hand one that works for her height (feet must be able to be flat on the floor or very close to floor when sitting) and however firm/soft she wants it and it will do the same thing!

I would be looking to replace the carer in genuine honesty as I dont like the idea she was allowing someone into the home with the idea of spending money if you mother hasnt got capacity due to dementia.

it's about the duty I feel to look after her.

I mean there's a compromise isn't there between letting her spend whatever she wants & spending on just what she needs?

What a horrible post !! Every line you’ve quoted from the OP was given by way of explanation of the situation - it’s you who is manipulating her words to means something else. In your rush to judgement you’ve clearly not read her posts properly or understood what having a lasting power of attorney actually means.

As the attorney OP is responsible for making sure that the money is spent wisely and in her mothers’ best interests. There is a finite funding source which is being eroded by her mothers’ lack of insight into her spending - this is caused by the dementia, and is being facilitated by the carer. The OP has the authority as the attorney to shut it down because it’s very clearly not in her mothers’ best interests to allow it to continue, and as far as I can see she’s trying to do exactly that - thereby bringing the spending under control, so that the funding source meets her mothers’ needs.

OP is also liaising with various health professionals to make sure that her mothers’ home environment is suitable for her needs. How does this translate into judgement and resentment of her mothers’ money, and what exactly would you suggest she does differently ?

An LPA doesn’t work that way. If, as the attorney, the OP perceives that the health condition is in some way responsible for the uncontrolled spending, or that the donor is being unduly influenced - in this case it appears to be both - then she has a duty to do something about it, to make sure that the source of funding will continue to meet her mothers’ needs. It’s not a question of what her mother wants, if the dementia is affecting her decision making. It’s a question of recognising that there’s a problem and making changes so that her mother is protected - both from outside influences and from her own inability to recognise the consequences of her actions.

£101 a week doesn't go far when the current costs are £2000 a week.