And he did. He may not have remembered that Barack Obama was president or that he just had a bowl of ice cream (my kindergartner nephew took full advantage), but he always remembered his family.
Money management was another matter. Early on in the disease, small red flags began to appear — failure to pay the association fees on the condominium in Florida, overpaid bills or repetitive trips to the A.T.M. Over time, he had to hand off most financial responsibilities to my mother and grandmother.
My grandfather was lucky enough to have relatives nearby who were able to gently intervene before the small mistakes escalated into something more serious, which is all too common.
But family members need to carefully consider how they approach their new role as financial caretaker. For adult children, this is the beginning of the role reversal. You may be stepping up to handle mundane tasks like paying the bills, but it's also the time when you begin to think about your parent's mortality, and perhaps your own.
For the person with encroaching dementia, the loss of autonomy can be devastating. "What often occurs is that the elder loses additional self-esteem, becomes more depressed and in turn becomes less active," said Daniel C. Marson, a neuropsychologist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
And that's why these matters must be handled delicately — and before a more serious financial unraveling occurs — whether the individual simply needs you to check in once a month, or you need to become the chief financial officer.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/06/your-money/06money.html?src=me&ref=your-money
