Need advice re elderly parent

pphillips

Detroit wrote: »

While it appears the OPs MIL is showing signs of confusion, I think if your post were true there would be so many UK adults lacking capacity, there would be a struggle to find enough deputies to go round.

Sadly many many people find themselves in the situation you describe, for a multitude of reasons.

Poor financial management alone can never be sufficient to evidence a lack of capacity.

This is absolutely correct, you cannot take away the financial choices of someone who still has mental capacity regardless of how stupid and irresponsible those choices are. A person who lacks 'mental capacity' is described in the MCA 2005 as "at the material time he is unable to make a decision for himself in relation to the matter because of an impairment of, or a disturbance in the functioning of, the mind or brain."

wannabe_sybil

People are legally allowed to make stupid decisions.

The bar for capacity is set really, really low.

It's a tough one.

Savvy_Sue

ouraggie wrote: »

Very good point. The recent ones were for things like parking in a bus bay, having wheels on the pavement, having a wheel outside the white line etc. She doesn't seem to get them for overstaying or parking on yellow lines/outside the hours etc. When I showed them to her , her response was" I was only there for ten minutes" or "I only had one wheel a bit out" . I could perhaps make her a list of things to check before she leaves the car.

This does ring a few alarm bells for me: a kind of nonchalance about parking which may spill over into the driving too, but also it would make me want to check her eyes were OK. Does she SEE that it's a bus bay not a parking bay?

I know some people have found older relatives having multiple minor accidents - scraping their cars on gateposts, walls, trees, other people's cars - which has led to difficult discussions!