Dutiful Child or Manipulator of the Elderly?

As parents age and their physical and mental capacities diminish, it is natural for their adult children, recognizing the parents’ decreasing ability to care for themselves, to step in and help them. Often, a specific child will take over the bulk of the responsibilities such as taking the parent to doctor’s appointments or the attorney’s office. As the parent begins to depend on the child more and more, it may make sense to appoint the child as a trusted decision maker and even to give them a larger inheritance to compensate them for their time. At the same time, other family members must take extreme care to ensure that the elderly parent is not being exploited by a manipulative caretaker.