When my own mother started seeing birds flying around the house, and having tea parties with ghosts, I knew it was time to act! Luckily some years before, she had put in place Powers of Attorney which enabled me to step in and manage her financial affairs and also talk to her doctors about her care and treatment. Had she not done so, the only option open to the family would have been an application to the Court of Protection for the appointment of a deputy - a more costly and prescriptive process, and one that would have taken considerable time - a luxury we did not have.
Once I had registered the Financial Decisions Lasting Power of Attorney with my mother’s various banks and with her pension provider and the DWP, I was able to sort out her finances and ensure everything ran smoothly for her.
Armed with the Health and Care LPA, I was able to talk to her doctors on her behalf and they were able to talk to me as if they were talking to her. This meant that what I knew were her wishes for treatment were listened to and acted upon. Even during the worst moments, when my mother insisted that she was not my mother, I knew that she had planned ahead and placed her trust in me to look after her best interests.
This story does have a happy ending – my mother was not labelled as a batty old woman and the key thrown away – with persistence and perseverance I was able to persuade her doctors that she was not like this because of dementia but because of chronic and repeated urinary tract infections over a period of some years. We now have the right treatment and the birds have flown and the ghosts have been exorcised.