When the wrong person is in charge of an aging parent

Sometimes the most difficult burdens in eldercare aren't created by our parents but by other family members.

I used to think I came from a dysfunctional family and that we were unusual. Then I began working with thousands of families and learned the reality of modern life: the number of happy, well-adjusted Ozzie and Harriet families is few. Many families have skeletons the size of dinosaurs lurking behind closed doors. As a result, there are some eldercare situations that have no good solutions, only imperfect compromises. When all is said and done, your only choice may be between a rock and a hard place. Of all the family situations that exist, one of the toughest is when the older person is in the early stages of dementia. She's making marginally poor decisions but is still socially appropriate and not yet ready to turn her business over to someone else. But she's being controlled by the wrong family member. Here's a correspondence I had with a daughter in one such family.

Q: I began noticing personality changes in my mother. Last spring she went to her physician, then to a neurologist, who said she has early Alzheimer's.

Mom has always listened to my brother. He sees her as a burden and swears cruelly at her when she can't keep track of her checkbook, etc. But he says Mom is "just fine" and gets very upset when we suggest she has dementia.

He does enjoy taking care of her money and real-estate holdings, and has insinuated himself into all of her finances. My mom complies because she can't not listen to him — he's a man. When my dad died (also a domineering man), my brother took over as the focal point of my mother's life. She worships him and excuses his abuse.

She used to keep an immaculate house, but now it's a mess. She gets lost when she drives. Her dog pees everywhere. Now she's in trouble with her homeowners association because her dog has bitten several neighbors. The association decided Mom could keep her dog if she muzzled him. My brother, a civil libertarian, maintains that no one has the right to tell my mom what she can or can't do with her dog. He made threatening phone calls, and now the association will call the police if he does it again. My mom forgets to use the muzzle. She received a letter last week notifying her that she had one more chance to comply or animal control will be called. My brother tells her there's nothing wrong with her and she can do as she wants.

What can we do?

A: This is a nightmare and, tragically, not unusual. Your mother certainly chose the wrong child to rely on, but that's water under the bridge.

You need to talk to an attorney. I did, and he suggests you consider all your options before taking the first step. The best one is to have you petition to have a guardian appointed for your mother, who would take over her finances and make decisions about her care. But this is likely to cost the most and cause the greatest damage within the family. With your brother's support, she's likely to get an attorney, as might he — creating a horrendously expensive duel — while he continues to poison your mom against you.

Or you can wait for your mom to crash. At some bad point (when she's too unaware to know what's happening), you could petition for guardianship. In the meantime, she might hurt someone in a car accident, her dog may be taken away, she could be sued by someone the dog bites, etc.

There are obviously no good choices here, but to help you decide, I recommend meeting with an elderlaw attorney to figure out what to do. I'm sorry for your loss, because no matter what happens, this is a hurtful situation.

Update: The daughter met with an elderlaw attorney for two hours. "The upshot was that I have absolutely no power to do anything about Mom," she wrote. Her mother continues to live on her own and to drive. She frequently gets lost and last summer drove around for 10 hours while trying to meet a friend for lunch.

The homeowners association sued to require the mother to remove the dog. The process went on for more than a year. "In the end," the daughter wrote, "my mom lost her dog and has to pay her attorney's and the association's attorney fees, to the tune of $12,000. My brother is subject to a 'no contact order' because of threatening behavior."

The nightmare continues. The mother's home is a mess, she can't remember the details of her life from day to day, she has a refrigerator full of spoiled food and her doctor told her she's so healthy, she might live to be 100.

Most of us age accidentally, without planning or forethought. Aging Deliberately tells us how to age on purpose. You can reach Liz Taylor at lizt@agingdeliberately.com or write to P.O. Box 11601, Bainbridge Island, WA 98110.