Spotting Dementia Early is Important in Estate Planning

Dementia, and the signs and symptoms of it, play a large and unique role in the world of estate planning. That’s because estate planning is largely about creating legal documents that distribute your property. If you don’t have the mental acuity or competency to do that knowingly, everything you create could get challenged, or worse, overturned in court after you are gone.

Start the Process Early

Many loved ones see elderly relatives start to experience cognitive decline, and think “we better have him or her make an estate plan now.” But by then, it may be too late. The best course is to convince elderly or aging loved ones to make estate plans when they don’t have any symptoms of cognitive decline.

That’s because anybody who doesn’t get what they wanted or anticipated from an estate plan, will be challenging that estate plan in probate court on the grounds of mental incompetency. And as loved ones show those signs, they just give credence to those potential claims.

Spotting the SIgns of Dementia

All of this makes it vitally important that family members are able to identify the signs of dementia in elderly loved ones or relatives. Sure, occasional forgetfulness is an obvious sign, but there are other signs as well.

Is your loved one starting to ignore important things in their lives that they once tended to? For example, the simple ability to timely pay bills may be ignored, or mail may go unopened. You may find loved ones have default letters, or other letters warning that they have missed important financial deadlines.

Sadly, those experiencing dementia, often rely on others who don’t have the best intentions at heart. Is your loved one isolating longtime friends or family members, in favor of advisors or other help, who may seem to be exerting too much influence on them?

Medical Needs and Personal Care

Those with early cognitive decline, often don’t take care of their own medical needs. They may forget to pick up or take prescription medicines, or stop going to what once were routine doctors appointments. Personal hygiene may deteriorate as well, as someone in decline may not remember to bathe or groom.

Those in decline may not realize they are in decline, and may refuse help from others—even help that they normally were willing to accept without issue in the past.

There is no definitive line where normalcy ends and cognitive decline begins, nor is there an absolute test to see if someone is incompetent cognitively such that they can’t legally make a will, or a complete estate plan.

But to avoid problems, it’s best to start the process as early as possible, as sadly, when cognitive problems do take hold, they can accelerate very rapidly as time goes on.

Call the West Palm Beach estate planning lawyers at The Law Offices of Larry E. Bray today to help create an estate plan now, as early as possible, to avoid problems and challenges later on.

Sources:

nia.nih.gov/health/legal-and-financial-planning/managing-money-problems-people-dementia#:~:text=Research%20shows%20that%20money%20problems,as%20balancing%20a%20bank%20account.

cnn.com/2024/10/23/business/elder-financial-harm-abuse-prevention/index.html