This week is dementia awareness week, an initiative by Alzheimer’s Society to encourage people to talk about dementia and not “bottle it up”.
If you are helping a relative or friend who has dementia, they will need to consider putting arrangements in place to ensure that someone they trust has authority to make decisions on their behalf about their financial and health affairs, should the time come when they can no longer make these decisions for themselves.
If the person with dementia is at this stage now, then it is possible to make an application to the Court of Protection for someone to be legally appointed to take on this role for them.
It is a major decision when appointing another person to help you with your affairs. Taking legal advice from someone you feel comfortable discussing this with, will help you to think about all of the relevant factors, and how it will work in practice.
Similarly, if you are a family member or friend of someone who is now struggling to deal with their day-to-day affairs, now is the time to speak to a solicitor about how you can help them formally.
We visit you at home, discuss these sensitive issues with you and take you through the processes step-by-step. You’ll always be kept up-to-date and we explain things in straight-forward English, not legal jargon.
