“Dad has dementia and is making terrible financial decisions.” That sentence appears, in various forms, across every online community where adult children talk about aging parents. It’s usually followed by a question about what can still be done. The answer depends almost entirely on timing.
Yes, an estate planning attorney can help, but the window matters.
Legal documents require what’s called testamentary capacity, which means the person signing has to understand what they’re signing and why. Early and even mid-stage dementia does not automatically rule this out. A person can have noticeable cognitive decline and still have enough understanding, on a good day, to validly execute a power of attorney or update a will. An experienced attorney will assess this carefully, sometimes with supporting documentation from a doctor, and if capacity is present, they will proceed.
The documents worth prioritising are the durable financial power of attorney, the healthcare proxy, and a will or living trust if one isn’t already in place. The financial power of attorney is often the most urgent because it’s the document that allows a trusted family member to step in before a crisis, not just after one.
If that window closes, and your parent no longer has sufficient capacity to sign new documents, the path forward changes significantly. The family would need to apply to a court for guardianship or conservatorship, a process that is slow, expensive, public, and decided by a judge who doesn’t know your parent or what they would have wanted. It is not insurmountable, but it is considerably harder than the alternative.
There is also a financial protection dimension to this that is easy to overlook. Cognitive decline makes people vulnerable. Accounts accessed without authority, assets moved, financial decisions made under pressure or confusion. A properly executed financial power of attorney in the hands of the right person closes those doors.
If your parent’s memory or judgment has begun to change, the most useful thing you can do right now is get an appointment with an estate planning attorney. Not next month. The sooner the assessment happens, the more options remain open.