Handwriting in old age childlike

[Wiserthanyesterday]

I will just cut to the crunch.

Looking at my father's handwritten will, I notice that his handwriting changed to that of a child.
He used to write the capital letters F, H and K as would be printed in an arial font but in his will, which was written when he was possibly already suffering with dementia, these letters are written as if freshly learnt at school on the continent. See attached.
Is there any research into why handwriting might change in this way?

Needless to say, I am concerned about foul play ...

Is people age and become frail their handwriting suffers as they are unable to grip a pen like they once were. That in itself should not be a cause for concern.

If he already had a dementia diagnosis then made a will THAT may be a concern.

It’s very common for handwriting to alter in older age. Lots of reasons, mainly loss of fine motor skills. It’s not necessarily a sign of concern, and also a dementia diagnosis isn’t necessarily a cause for concern.

Whilst I agree as people become more frail their grip on a pen might be weaker but it seems odd he would completely change his style of writing especially the H. Is the will as you would expect it to be or are there people included that you would not expect to be included?

Do you have a serious concern that he's been influenced or that somebody else wrote it and he signed?

Has it been witnessed when he signed?

Could he have asked someone to rewrite his will and then he signed it?

My MIL wanted to change her will recently. My dd bought a will form, took the old will and copied it exactly - just taking out the clause that her grandma wanted removed - and then gave the new will to MIL to check.

MIL is in her 90s and her handwriting is shaky so she didn't want to do it herself.

Thank you so much for the responses, I really appreciate it!!

Without wanting to go into too much detail, nutshell, my father passed this year and his partner of 20+ years had driven a wedge between him, my siblings and me from the start. My father was a sensitive person and petrified he might be left again, and I think his partner took very much advantage of that. She did not want to marry him because she did not want any entitlement for my father in any form or shape.
My impression is that my father was coerced / frightened into altering his will by her.

I have unfortunately seen nothing on the internet that addresses specifically a return to childhood form in handwriting - only that writing becomes less legible with age, and maybe a little loose and less tidy in general. With this specific change of writing certain letters as was taught to him as a young child, I wondered, if there might be a connection with dementia or alzheimer's, or some other condition that affects brain and development. Myself and my siblings from my father's first marriage are prevented from getting access to medical records and paperwork. It's all with his partner, and she has no intention of sharing such information.

Thanks again for your input so far.

Have you seen the will op? Are there things in there that go against what you'd expect of hisokeoje else writing for him or trying to make it look neater are also options

I don't know if dementia could result in a change to a handwriting style learnt in childhood or not.
But if you are concerned about the validity of the will, I think the starting point would be to establish that it was signed by your father in the presence of the two witnesses who signed at the same time ie all 3 of them were in the room together. The witnesses should have added their names and addresses after their signatures. Do you recognise the names? Do you know them? Are they for example friends or neighbours of your father? Could they be approached either by you or a solicitor on your behalf?

My mum had Alzheimer’s and her writing certainly changed. She used to have very neat, joined up writing but as her illness progressed, she began to write without joining, very childlike, not in a straight line and messy. Sad to see really.