Walk It Through: The Father Who Is Forgetting
A mandate signed while he still can, a doctor's question, and a court petition when nothing less works.
A father in early dementia wants his daughter to handle his bills and medical decisions.
Two things a person in this spot might do. Picking one shows what the law says about it.
Planning for a parent losing capacity. A living will, a trust, and Medicaid planning are not worked through here.
A practice walkthrough, not a prediction of how any real one will go. Legal information, not legal advice.
Words this turns on
Terms with a legal meaning that is narrower than the everyday one. Each links to the definition and the authority behind it.
- CuratorThe person a court appoints to act for an interdict, with reasonable care and in the interdict's best interest.
- InterdictionA court's order that an adult who cannot consistently make reasoned decisions be represented by a curator, in full or only in part.
- MandateA contract giving another person, the mandatary, authority to act for the principal.
- SuccessionThe transmission of a deceased person's property to the heirs or legatees, by testament or by law.
- DeclarationA written, oral or nonverbal directive, made before two witnesses, that life-sustaining procedures be withheld in a terminal and irreversible condition.