Every phase of life presents unique challenges to individuals and families alike. This is especially true as one enters the twilight years of life. The body and mind are weakening, and roles are changing within the family.
Complications occur, leading to strained relationships and misunderstandings within the family unit. The passing of family members or other significant figures can add a layer of complexity. The situation is compounded with the onset of complicated grief where a family member or members are unable to process the loss of a loved one.
All these factors combined can make a family vulnerable to manipulation from outside influencers, bad actors and others.
One family found themselves in the situation described above, and it became a 12-year journey.
The beginning
The story begins at the passing of the family’s elderly father and resulted in extreme financial loss and a season of broken relationships. Four areas were reviewed and assessed on the family’s ability to respond to the different events.
- Summary of players.
- Planning — What steps occurred to prepare for the incident?
- Response — How did the family respond to the incident?
- Recovery — What lessons were learned? What are recommended courses of action for future consideration?
While individual elderly abuse cases cannot be compared to a regional or national disaster, each case still has significant, possibly irreparable, consequences on the family involved.
Also, abuse and manipulation of the elderly — especially romance scams — are becoming more and more common.
The cost is not tabulated in lives lost or damage to businesses and property as in a large storm, but certainly in stolen money and investments and retirement plans reduced or even depleted.
Damage to — or even destruction of — a family’s structure, cohesiveness, relationships, etc., are other aspects of the price paid. All things that make a family a family are shaken when elderly abuse occurs.
Timeline of events
- 1980s — Family trust was drawn up.
- March 2010 — father passes and caregivers originally contracted for the father’s care are extended at the mother’s request.
- November 2010 — Mother hires a new attorney and makes changes in trust and will.
- May 2011 — Power of attorney revoked for surviving adult children (one sibling previously deceased).
- February 2014 — Second sibling passes.
- December 2015 — Surviving child ceases contact with mother because of strained relationship.
- January 2016 — Surviving child leaves for six-month military deployment.
- July 2016 — Surviving child returns from deployment and learns of his mother’s fall and hospitalization.
- Fall 2016 — Surviving child and spouse re-engage with the mother. Power of attorney is reestablished. Daughter-in-law takes over management of mother’s affairs, including working with a new lawyer, and caregiver is confronted. He quits and is never heard from again.
- May 2021 — The mother moves to a memory care community.
- May 2022 — The mother moves to a skilled nursing care facility.
- June 2023 — The mother passes.
Summary of players
The family of five has a strong religious background and is upper middle class with all three adult children earning postgraduate degrees.
Shortly before the father died, his neurologist observed some potential concerns with the mother and suggested she be examined. While there was a history of undiagnosed neurosis on the mother’s side of the family, she pushed back on any conversations about her health. She seemed threatened by those conversations.
Over time, she began acting out of character with excessive outbursts and was eventually diagnosed with dementia.
Outside players impacting any family are people or agencies such as hair stylists, house cleaning companies, contractors for maintenance, home care staff, longtime neighbors, new acquaintances, bankers, financial managers, lawyers and other service providers.
They all play significant roles and perform important duties, but in some cases the motive behind their actions could call into question if their actions are for the best interest of the elderly person or of themselves — something we don’t always think to assess.
Planning and response
During the 1980s, routine financial, legal, health care decisions were made with all family members included and informed. The family had a culture of caregiving and an expectation to provide care as parents aged, but a variety of changes took place after the father died while the mother was grieving and adapting to life without her husband.
The mother made massive changes within the first two years after her husband died, and the family determined her decisions were impacted by her mental state along with manipulation by outside players.
- Caregiver concerns
The caregiver was a middle-aged male, and his father owned the company. The caregiver quickly established a rivalry with the adult children. Several years later, the extent of that caregiver’s criticism of the family (or anyone he considered a threat) and his manipulation of the mother’s emotions were revealed.
The mother was inconsistent in her behavior and sometimes exhibited outlandish behavior and spewed unfounded accusations.
The caregiver scheduled himself for nights, which made the family uncomfortable.
Irregular behavior
There was no indication of any physical abuse, but it seemed irregular for a male caregiver to stay overnight with an elderly woman. What the children eventually deduced was that it gave him a private audience with their mother.
The caregiver also passed himself off as a member of the family. It was discovered when the youngest sibling received a phone call from his parents’ lawyer to discuss the recent meeting with “his mother and brother.” The sibling replied that his brother had died the previous year. Subsequent conversations revealed the caregiver was accompanying the elderly mother during visits to the lawyer’s office, banks, etc.
The son soon discovered the mother was writing checks to the caregiver with his guidance. After that discovery, the mother told the son he no longer needed to look at her checking account.
The children then confronted the home care company that employed the caregiver and presented a long list of grievances against the employee. The operations manager assured the family a solution would be found.
However, instead of removing the caregiver, the company canceled the contract with the family and initiated a new contract with the elderly mother. The children then realized what the operations manager meant by “finding a solution.” They also realized that this was not the case of a wayward son with a sketchy reputation, but the entire company was suspect.
During this time, the children had ongoing discussions with the financial institution about the situation with their mother and caregiver, which created more friction between the mother and the children.
- Housekeeper concerns
The housekeeper, who was hired by the mother, was there for approximately one year and had to leave due to illness. About once a year after that, she would call the mother to ask for money.
Recovery phase
Observation 1 — Early preparation
The parents checked off most, if not all, the boxes in planning for this phase of their lives. This included planning and preparation financially, legal (trust and will) and health care, including the expectations after one of the parents had passed.
However, the planning was incomplete. They did not consider mental health issues, the impact of a changing family dynamic and grief issues. The family did not identify resources within their respective churches, communities, etc., that could be a resource in dealing with elder care and mental health issues.
What are the lessons learned and future course of action suggestions?
Families should incorporate an “all-hazards” approach in planning how to take care of elderly parents. Every situation is unique; thus, each family has its own strengths and weaknesses, as well as special considerations for the parents and sometimes other family members.
Possible issues to consider include bad actors, physical threats, legal issues, medical care and mental health concerns.
Any existing threat or hazard not mitigated is a vulnerability that must be addressed in either a formal written document or an informal agreement between all parties concerned. The process should be a collaborative effort between all family members if possible, and the plan should be discussed, reviewed and updated periodically.
Observation 2 — Assessing in-house health care options
One sibling obtained a listing of providers from the hospital where their father was admitted. The siblings discussed the information but wrongly assumed a vetting process was in place for those companies to be on the list provided by hospital staff.
Wrong assumptions
The oversight led to more wrong assumptions, mainly about the integrity of a prospective home care provider and its employers. This was a single point of failure and was the root cause of most of the problems experienced by the family.
What are the lessons learned and future course of action suggestions?
Do adequate planning prior to a health emergency. The impact of this vulnerability cannot be overstated and is validated by this family’s experience.
At a minimum, the following information on a prospective in-home health care provider should be reviewed:
- What services does the company offer?
- Is it home care or home health?
- What is the difference in what their sitters do versus what their aids do?
- What nursing services are available?
- Do they offer physical and mental therapy?
- Obtain and check references.
- Review information on the group’s liability insurance.
- Confirm background checks are run on employees.
- How many years have they been in business?
- How many employees do they have and what is the retention rate like?
- Are reviews available online or through the Better Business Bureau?
Observation 3 — Service providers such as housekeepers
The lesson learned is that the family must be the gatekeepers to adequately care for and protect the elderly family member/members, even if it means confronting anyone who might be attempting to manipulate the situation.
Observation 4 — Financial institutions’ role and reaction to strife within the family
The parents, specifically the father, had an unusually close relationship that spanned decades with the company that managed their financial portfolio. It was marked by mutual respect between the client and the service provider.
What was taken for granted by the family was that the long-standing relationship with the financial services company would afford them some protection. They also forgot that despite a good relationship, they should not have had any expectation that the financial services company was nothing more than a reputable company and that “friendly” does not equal “friend.”
Shutting down
Once higher-ups in the company got wind of the family’s fractured situation, they decided to shut everything down, giving the son 30 days to find a new financial management company for his mother’s portfolio.
As far as a future course of action — whatever the situation, the less said to an outside interest, the better. Have a plan B if the current financial situation or the financial services provider is becoming untenable.
Observation 5 — Long-term care facilities
Future course of action is to do thorough research. Contact your state’s long-term care ombudsman for guidance and assess the staff’s experience at the facility. Review the contract carefully, understand daily care routines and ask how the staff responds to unusual situations.
Observation 6 — Safeguarding the mental and physical health of all family members
Maintaining healthy boundaries while caring for aging parents is important and contributed to the family’s resilience during the trying time with the mother.
The son practiced stepping away for a time, which helped ensure the wellbeing of him and his spouse.
He also contacted his church for pastoral care. The staff member he spoke to was knowledgeable and had both personal and professional experience dealing with older family members, grief counseling, the impact of age and the loss of a loved one.
Future courses of action include locating various resources ahead of time and committing to protect your own mental and physical health over the duration and know when to prioritize that over your parent’s care. Caregivers can’t provide quality care if they push themselves beyond their limits.
EDITOR’S NOTE — This article was written by Richard Bailey and was submitted special to The Alabama Baptist.
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