Making difficult situations a little easier

A diagnosis of Alzheimer’s can be difficult and most people immediately think about an uncertain future and fear how they will cope. When a Lasting Power of Attorney is suggested a lot of people are worried that they will be handing their decision making over to someone else and losing control of their own affairs. In fact it is the opposite, a Lasting Power of Attorney allows you to remain in control by choosing the person that you trust and want to manage your financial and welfare decisions if you could no longer make them yourself, allowing you to control future decision making and preventing strangers from getting involved in your affairs.

Like most illnesses, Alzheimer’s comes with good and bad days, so by having a financial and property LPA in place you can ask your attorney(s) to deal with something if you’re having a bad day even though you have capacity for decision making.

Unlike the financial and property LPA, the welfare LPA can only be used if you lose capacity to make your own welfare decisions, so you are putting someone in place who knows you well enough to be able to make a medical or care decision as you would have done so yourself.

So you can see that having LPAs in place not only give you and your family peace of mind but allows you to take control of your future decision making.

As well as considering the security of LPAs, don’t forget to think about if and when you or someone you know could claim Attendance Allowance. Attendance Allowance is a benefit that is paid to people who need help or supervision with daily activities that may become more difficult when short term memory becomes a problem.

For further information visit diverseabilities.org.uk/advice or call 0300 330 5514 to speak to the team today.