Question about LPOA

[BlueLegume]

Hi all, I have been on and started several threads on Elderly parents and always found sound sensible advice and support. Hoping for the same here.

Several years ago my mother made a huge song and dance about getting LPAs organised for her. It was all left to me admin wise. I sat with my parents and asked if they wanted to add any wishes etc. ‘No no Blue we will just go along with whatever you and siblings think is best’. I understand that the Health LPA can only really be used when they are deemed to have lost capacity.

My Dad is now end of life and in a care facility. He is not the issue. My mother is. She needs help, possibly psychiatric. She has always been ‘odd’ but she is now impossible to deal with. I have stepped right back but the crisis we are hurtling towards is evermore close.

She refuses to see a doctor. Social services deem her to have capacity. She essentially refuses to engage with anything that would help us to carry on with our normal lives - now disrupted for 3 years with no end in sight. Each time we overcome a problem she moves the goalposts and creates another one.

I suppose my question is could we invoke the LPA jointly and intervene to halt this behaviour. She has made it clear she simply expects ‘family to rally’. We are exhausted. One of the siblings keeps threatening her with ‘I am going to invoke your health LPA’ but she says she ‘won’t let him’.

Any advice or experience?

You are right that your mum needs not have capacity for heath matters for it to be invoked.

So effectively she's acting deliberately over her choices. And using guilt to up the ante.

To move forward you will all need to drop the rope and not rally round. But it needs to be all the people involved in her care. You need to jointly spell out to your mum exactly whats going to happen, and don't deviate if she doesn't change her mind. It will be hard and undoubtedly there will be a crisis. It will also be difficult if you have one or two willing to carry on as is which will breed resentment.

And she is refusing treatment/ carers that's her choice and she's entitled to it.

Is your dad's circumstances colouring her view? Is she unhappy with his arrangements?

You are right in that you can't invoke the LPOA until she has lost capacity.

But have you thought what invoking it would achieve at this stage? As in, if she won't engage with a GP you can't force this. Using a LPOA won't actually do anything.

The LPOA for health is more to be used to help make specific health decisions when someone can't for themselves, like if they can't communicate after a stroke and consent is needed for treatment options.

You can still call her GP and relay your concerns. They can try to engage with her and they are the decision makers around whether she has lost capacity around her health needs.

Try to remember she is an adult and is making her own choices. You are not responsible for this. Anything that happens is her own fault, not yours.

Best of luck.

As @ohcrikeynotagain has said.
You absolutely can't activate a health and welfare POA until it is deemed that your mother has lost capacity to make a particular decision.
So it's.a question of withdrawing support

Thank you. It exactly as I thought. I have contacted the GP but my mother will not give us permission for the GP to discuss her situation. Social services have attempted to intervene suggesting a care assessment but she refuses.

As you advise dropping thr open is the only real solution. Unfortunately one sibling is enabling her behaviour by providing her with some ‘help’. It isn’t help it is simply enabling her behaviour.

I begged my mother last week to seek help. Her response was ‘I don't want help from strangers I want my family to rally’.

Thanks all. Goodness it is depressing dealing with these stubbornly oldies. I feel like I have not seen normal life for so long now. Permanent anxiety. Everytime I think she can’t stoop any lower she does.

The first step of a capacity assessment is 'Do they have a disorder of brain or mind?'

So without any sort of diagnosis, they will always have capacity.

plus in my experience social workers are more generous in their capacity assessments than medics

You can try telling your mum that the family have rallied round and as part of that rallying they have realised she needs medical help.
You can also contact her GP and pass on your concerns and ask them to see her 'for a routine check-up'.

Unfortunately if one sibling isn't on board you may achieve nothing until that sibling burns out.

You have to be cruel to be kind, both for your own sakes and each others.

Thanks @AnnaMagnani it is very clear she is choosing to make poor decisions as she knows we keep dropping stuff off to keep her fed etc. I stopped doing that some months ago as I am not prepared to shop for someone with incredibly specific food choices who tells me two days later she has ‘thrown it away’. She is like a stroppy teen. I have made it clear I refuse to spend time and money shopping for someone who then discards my purchases. Unfortunately this has left one of my siblings labelling me as ‘unbelievable’. No I am a realist and can see how our mother is manipulating us.

We have exhausted trying to get help from the GP. Our mother refuses to engage in anything they suggest such as social prescribing etc…..’I don’t want that I have 3 children who can help’.

Social services have tried but they cannot force her. Thank you for the responses.

@BlueLegume as previous posters have said it needs to be an united front from all of your siblings. If your mum won't accept help there's nothing you can do until there is a crisis then maybe she will realise. But you need to have a united approach with the siblings for anything to happen. I would step back and encourage the family to do so also. Then wait for the inevitable fallout.

@shellyleppard absolutely agree. Unfortunately we don’t seem able to form a united front. My resolve this week is to step right away and wait for the inevitable crisis. I keep refuelling myself coming up with good ideas to make life better for her but she just refuses any suggestions. Thanks all you have answered my question re the LPA which is the point of the thread.

I have had excellent advice about how to handle the bigger picture on various other threads. Time to re read them and reinstate the ideas to retain some quality of life for myself. One of my siblings calls me selfish for that - I think it is sensible. But hey ho let him polish his halo.

Thanks again.

@BlueLegume sometimes you have to look after yourself first x