Financial Exploitation in Aging: What to Know & What to Do

Here’s an upsetting situation that comes up a lot, and may have come up for you: is someone financially taking advantage of Mom or Dad?

It’s a pretty legitimate concern to have. To begin with, most people know that there are plenty of “scammers” out there, phoning or mailing older adults with deceptive information designed to hoodwink them out of some of their savings.

But there’s actually another form of exploitation that may be more common, and is often harder for families to address.

That would be exploitation perpetrated by a someone the older person knows and has a personal relationship with.

Sometimes the person suspected of exploitation is relatively new to the older person’s life, such as a new romantic interest, friend, or paid caregiver.

In other cases, family members become concerned that someone in the family – such as one of the older person’s children – is beginning to take financial advantage of things.

Exploitation in the context of personal relationships is often especially tricky for families to address. The older person may be quite attached to – or otherwise feel dependent on – the person that others perceive as suspicious or problematic. Or there may be concerns about stirring up family dramas and conflicts, by voicing concerns about a sibling or another relative.

People are often unsure of what exactly constitutes illegal activity, and what can be done if they are concerned about financial exploitation.

So in this article, I’ll cover the key things you should know, so that you can better evaluate and address a worrisome situation, should one arise.

Specifically, in this article I’ll explain:

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4 Medications FDA-Approved to Treat Alzheimer’s & Other Dementias:
How They Work & FAQs

by Leslie Kernisan, MD MPH

If someone in your family has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s or another dementia, chances are that they’ve been prescribed one of the “memory medications,” such as donepezil (brand name Aricept) or memantine (brand name Namenda).

But were they told what to expect, and how to judge if the medication is worth continuing?

I’ve noticed that patients and families often aren’t told much about how well these medications generally work, their side effects, and how to determine if it’s likely to help in their situation.

So in this post, I’ll explain how the four Alzheimer’s medications in wide use work. I’ll also address some of the frequently asked questions that I hear from older adults and families.

If someone in your family is taking one of these medications or considering them, this will help you better understand the medication and what questions you might want to ask the doctors. It’s especially important to understand the pros and cons if finances or medication costs are a concern.

I also have a video discussing this topic, along with newer discoveries in Alzheimer’s care and non-drug related approaches:

Note: This article is about those drugs that have been studied and approved to treat the cognitive decline related to dementia. This is not the same as treating behavioral symptoms (technically called “neuropsychiatric” symptoms) related to dementia, such as paranoia, agitation, hallucinations, aggression, sleep disturbances, wandering, and so forth. Until 2023, there were no drugs FDA-approved to treat the behavioral problems of dementia. The use of psychiatric medications, such as quetiapine and brexpiprazole (Seroquel and Rexulti, respectively), in dementia and is covered here: 5 Types of Medication Used to Treat Sundowning & Difficult Dementia Behaviors.)

Worried about the health & safety of an aging loved one? I explain how to address driving and other safety issues here: How to Help Your Parent with Memory Loss Be Safer (Even if They’re Resisting).

4 Oral Medications FDA-Approved to Treat Dementia

FDA-approved medications to treat Alzheimer’s and related types of dementia basically fall into two categories:

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4 Types of Brain-Slowing Medication to Avoid if You’re Worried About Memory

by Leslie Kernisan, MD MPH

A few years ago, while I was at a family celebration, several people mentioned memory concerns to me.

Some were older adults concerned about the memory of their spouses. Some were adult children concerned about the short-term memory of their parents. And a few were older adults who have noticed some slowing down of their own memory.

“But you know, nothing much that can be done at my age,” remarked one man in his eighties.

Wrong. In fact, there is a lot that can and should be done, if you notice memory loss or thinking changes in yourself or in another older adult. And you should do it because it ends up making a difference for brain health and quality of life.

First among them: identify medications that make brain function worse.

This is not just my personal opinion. Identifying and reducing such medications is a mainstay of geriatrics practice. Among other reasons, we do find that in some people, certain medications are causing memory loss symptoms — or other cognitive symptoms — to be worse.

And the expert authors of the National Academy of Medicine report on Cognitive Aging agree: in their Action Guide for Individuals and Families, they list “Manage your medications” among their “Top 3 actions you can take to help protect your cognitive health as you age.”

Unfortunately, many older adults are unaware of this recommendation. And I can’t tell you how often I find that seniors are taking over-the-counter or prescription medications that dampen their brain function. Sometimes it’s truly necessary but often it’s not.

What especially troubles me is that most of these older adults — and their families — have no idea that many have been linked to developing dementia, or to worsening of dementia symptoms. So it’s worth spotting them whether you are concerned about mild cognitive impairment or caring for someone with full-blown Alzheimer’s dementia.

Every older adult and family should know how to optimize brain function. Avoiding problem medications — or at least using them judiciously and in the lowest doses necessary — is key to this.

And don’t give anyone a pass when they say “Oh, I’ve always taken this drug.” Younger and healthier brains experience less dysfunction from these drugs. That’s because a younger brain has more processing power and is more resilient. So drugs that aren’t such problems earlier in life often have more impact later in life. Just because you took a drug in your youth or middle years doesn’t mean it’s harmless to continue once you are older.

You should also know that most of these drugs affect balance, and may increase fall risk. So there’s a double benefit in identifying them, and minimizing them.

Below, I share the most commonly used drugs that you should look out for if you are worried about memory loss.

Featured Download: Get my free list of medications that can affect memory and thinking in aging adults. This handy PDF includes all the medications I usually check for. Click here to download.

The Four Most Commonly Used Types of Medications That Dampen Brain Function

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Cerebral Small Vessel Disease:
What to Know & What to Do

by Leslie Kernisan, MD MPH

Signs of cerebral small vessel disease. From Inzitari et al, BMJ. 2009 Jul 6;339:b2477. doi: 10.1136/bmj.b2477

This article is about the most common aging brain problem that you may have never heard of.

While leading a fall prevention workshop a few years ago, I mentioned that an older person’s walking and balance problems might well be related to the presence of “small vessel ischemic changes” in the brain, which are very common in aging adults. (This is also called “white matter disease.”)

This led to an immediate flurry of follow-up questions. What exactly are these changes, people wanted to know. Do they happen to every older adult? Is this the same as vascular dementia? And how they can best help their parents with cognitive decline?

Well, these types of brain lesions don’t happen to every older person, but they do happen to the vast majority of them. In fact, one study of older adults aged 60-90 found that 95% of them showed signs of these changes on brain MRI.

In other words, if your older parent ever gets an MRI of the head, he or she will probably show some signs of these changes.

So this is a condition that older adults and families should know about. Furthermore, these changes have been associated with problems of consequence to older adults, including:

Cognitive decline,
Problems with walking or balance,
Strokes,
Vascular dementia.

Now, perhaps the best technical term for what I’m referring to is “cerebral small vessel disease.” But many other synonyms are used by the medical community — especially in radiology reports. They include:

White matter disease
Small vessel ischemic disease
Brain lesions
Periventricular white matter changes
Perivascular chronic ischemic white matter disease of aging
Chronic microvascular changes, chronic microvascular ischemic changes
Chronic microvascular ischemia
White matter hyperintensities
Age-related white matter changes
Leukoaraiosis

In this post, I will explain what all older adults and their families should know about this extremely common condition related to the brain health of older adults.

In particular, I’ll address the following frequently asked questions:

What is cerebral small vessel disease (SVD)?
What are the symptoms of cerebral SVD?
How is cerebral small vessel disease related to vascular dementia and cerebrovascular accidents?
What causes cerebral SVD?
How can cerebral SVD be treated or prevented?
Should you request an MRI if you’re concerned about cerebral SVD?

I will also address what you can do, if you are concerned about cerebral SVD for yourself or an older loved one.

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6 Ways that Memory & Thinking Change with Normal Aging (& What to Do About This)

by Leslie Kernisan, MD MPH

It’s annoying but unfortunately true: most parts of the body work less well as one gets older and older.

This is even true of the brain, which is part of why it becomes more common to experience a “tip of the tongue” moment as one gets older.

Such age-related changes in how the brain manages memory, thinking, and other mental processes are called “cognitive aging.”

Understanding how aging changes cognitive function is important. It can help you understand what to anticipate when it comes to your own aging. It can also help families better understand the changes they’re noticing in an older person, and whether those are out of the ordinary or not.

Since I’ve often written about changes in thinking that are abnormal and concerning in older adults, I thought it might be helpful for me to write an article outlining what is normal and to be expected.

Specifically, I’ll cover:

How cognitive aging differs from other diseases and conditions that affect memory and thinking
6 ways that memory and thinking change with aging
The difference between crystallized and fluid intelligence
How to tell cognitive aging apart from more worrisome changes, such as mild cognitive impairment and signs of Alzheimer’s and related dementia
Practical takeaways and what you can do

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Q&A: How to Diagnose & Treat Mild Cognitive Impairment?

by Leslie Kernisan, MD MPH

Q: I realize that I sometimes have difficulty connecting a name and a face. I presume that this is mild cognitive impairment.

On researching the topic online, I find a variety of suggestions for alleviating it. These include supplements (lipoic acid, vitamin E, omega 3s, curcumin), food choices (fish, vegetables, black and green teas), aerobic exercise, yoga, and meditation.

Do these actually help with mild cognitive impairment? What’s been proven to work?

A: It’s common for older adults to feel they’re having trouble with certain memory or thinking tasks as they get older.

I can’t say whether it’s mild cognitive impairment (MCI) in your particular case. But we can review what is known about stopping or slowing cognitive changes in people diagnosed with MCI.

First, let’s start by reviewing what MCI is, and how it’s diagnosed. Then I’ll share some information on the approaches you are asking about, as well as other approaches for treating MCI.

What is Mild Cognitive Impairment?

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Cognitive Impairment in Aging: 10 Common Causes & 10 Things the Doctor Should Check

by Leslie Kernisan, MD MPH

Have you been worried about an older person’s memory or thinking abilities?

Maybe your parent has seemed more confused recently. Or you may have noticed that your aging spouse is repeating herself, or struggling to do things that didn’t use to pose much of a problem.

Or you may have noticed false accusations, or irrational worries getting out of control.

These are very common concerns, and they often lead to questions such as:

Is this normal aging or something more significant?
What is wrong?
Could this be Alzheimer’s? Or some other form of dementia?
Can these memory problems be treated or reversed?
What should we do about this??

The answer to the last question is this: if you are worried about memory or thinking, then you should seek out some kind of medical evaluation.

That’s because when families worry about an older person’s cognitive abilities, there often are some underlying health issues affecting the mind’s function.

Those need to be detected, and treated if at all possible. So, you’ll need to request help from a health professional, and in this article, I’ll explain what that initial help should consist of. This way you’ll know what to expect, and what the doctor might ask you about.

Technically, these kinds of problems are called “cognitive impairment.” This is a broad term that means some kind of problem or difficulty with one’s memory, thinking, concentration, and other functions of the conscious brain, beyond what might be expected due to normal “cognitive aging.”

(For more on “cognitive aging” and what types of changes are considered normal aging, see this article: 6 Ways that Memory & Thinking Change with Normal Aging, & What to Do About This.)

Cognitive impairment — which is also called “cognitive decline” — can come on suddenly or gradually, and can be temporary or more permanent. It may or may not keep getting slowly worse; it all depends on the underlying cause or causes.

In this article, I’ll share with you the more common causes of cognitive impairment in older adults.

I’ll then share a list of 10 things that should generally be done, during a preliminary medical evaluation for cognitive decline in an older adult.

You can also watch a subtitled video version of this information below.

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7 Commonly Neglected Problems to Address for Healthier Aging:
The Healthy Aging Checklist Part 3

by Leslie Kernisan, MD MPH

This is the third in a series of posts covering the Healthy Aging Checklist.

Again, the Healthy Aging Checklist summarizes the six fundamental activities I recommend when asked what to do to maintain the best possible health while aging. They are:

Promote brain health and emotional well-being.
Promote physical health.
Check for and address common aging health problems (such as falls, memory concerns, depression, incontinence, pain, isolation, polypharmacy).
Learn to optimize the management of any chronic conditions.
Get recommended preventive health services for older adults.
Address medical, legal, and financial advance care planning.

In this post, I’ll cover the third item: addressing commonly neglected aging health problems that routinely sabotage healthy aging.

These issues are sometimes referred to as geriatric syndromes. They affect health and quality of life, and although they happen more in people who are older or frailer, they affect countless people in their 60s and 70s as well.

Virtually all of these issues affect a older adults’s ability to socialize, be physically active, and take good care of himself or herself. So addressing these is key to enabling healthier aging.

Unfortunately, these issues routinely fall through the cracks of usual medical care. People often suffer from these problems for years without anyone taking effective action.

This may be because many people — doctors, older adults themselves, or family members — assume nothing can be done about these, and that they are just “part of getting old.”

Don’t believe that. We have studied these problems in geriatrics and most of the time, correctly evaluating and then managing these problems helps older adults and their families feel better, live better, and sometimes even live longer.

Remember, healthy aging is not just about preventing problems. It’s also about spotting them and addressing them before they get worse, or drag down the rest of your health and independence.

So for healthier aging, be proactive in checking for these oft-neglected problems.

And then remember: sub-optimal treatment of these problems is all too common. So you’ll need to be proactive about getting them correctly managed — which might mean either seeing a geriatrician (here’s how to find a geriatrician) or making sure your usual doctor is thinking like one.

Here’s what to look for, and how to learn more:

7 Common Problems to Check for and Address for Healthier Aging

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How to Promote Brain Health:
The Healthy Aging Checklist, Part 1

by Leslie Kernisan, MD MPH

“Doctor, what do you recommend for healthy aging?”

“My mom is getting older and I want to help her stay healthy. What should we be doing?”

On this site, I usually write about how to manage or avoid specific aging health challenges. But in real life, I often get asked the questions above. After all, many people want advice on how to be healthier, or stay healthy.

That’s because we all intuitively know that maintaining good health (including cognitive function) is key to maintaining what is most important to us as we age: our ability to be physically and mentally capable, so that we can remain active, engaged in our lives, and as independent as possible.

We also know that poor health can bring on pain and other symptoms, as well as disabilities that can jeopardize how we live our usual lives. In fact, most “aging” problems that older adtuls and families struggle with — like difficulties with mobility, memory, or independence — track back to underlying health problems.

So it’s good to know how to maintain one’s health as one ages, in order to keep our minds and bodies working well for as long as possible.

Furthermore, healthy aging isn’t just about forestalling aging or disability. It’s also about knowing how to make the best of things even once you do have chronic diseases or chronic disabilities of the mind or body. I call this optimizing health, for better health while aging.

It means optimizing one’s health — and health care — so that the brain and body work at their best for now and for the future. And the beauty of this is that the same key things work, whether you are a “healthy” older person with no particular health problems versus someone who has chronic conditions or even an “uncurable” disabling disease such as Alzheimer’s.

In this series of posts, I’m going to tell you how to do this.

The Healthy Aging Checklist

For the healthiest aging, do this:

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6 Causes of Paranoia in Aging & What to Do

by Leslie Kernisan, MD MPH

Q: My mother is 80. She is very active (despite breaking her hip 2 years ago), she still attends water therapy 3 times a week at the YMCA, she drives to the base (which is 20 miles away) and pays her bills on time. She is a retired Psych nurse and has shown signs in the past of paranoia.

Lately, she has “heard” voices of her grandchildren in her home and called my sister. She also has difficulty with getting the right words to say out and has her sleep pattern out of whack and will call people at odd times of the night. With her independence comes the fact she won’t share any medical information because she thinks we are out to get her committed.

How can I test her/question her to find out the level of decline she may be in to make sure she is safe? — K

A: Great question. As you may know, it’s fairly common for aging adults to develop problems like the ones you are describing. Some older adults will also start leveling a lot of false accusations. Understandably, these problems are frustrating and worrying for adult children.

You are absolutely right to be concerned about your mom’s safety. I do have some ideas for how you can get started assessing her, which I share below.

But first I want to explain the most common causes of this type of behavior in older adults. That’s because one of the things you must do is help your mother and the doctors figure out why she’s developed these behavior changes and other symptoms.

A fair number of people don’t get around to the medical evaluation because they assume that these crazy behaviors are either normal aging (definitely false) or dementia such as Alzheimer’s (true about 40% of the time).

Furthermore, it’s often hard to get a resistant older parent medically evaluated.

Still, it’s worth persisting in this, because many causes of paranoia or other odd behavior in older people can be treated.

Paranoia, false accusations and psychosis

Paranoid symptoms (e.g. believing that someone is out to get you, or is taking your stuff, or is in the house at night) falls into a category of mental symptoms that is technically called “psychosis.”

Symptoms of psychosis can include:

Delusions, which means believing things that aren’t true or real (which can include false accusations)
Hallucinations, which means seeing or hearing things that aren’t there.
Disorganized thoughts or speech, meaning saying or thinking things that seem illogical or bizarre to others.

Psychosis is uncommon in younger people but becomes much more common as people get older. That’s because any of these symptoms can emerge when people’s brains aren’t working properly for some reason.

A 2015 review article on “late-life psychosis” estimates that 23% of people will develop symptoms of psychosis in late life.

6 causes of paranoia and psychosis in aging

In the above review article, the authors organize the causes of late-life psychosis into six “Ds”:

Delirium (10 %).
- This is a very common condition of “worse-than-usual” mental function, often brought on by the stress of severe illness, surgery, or hospitalization. See 10 Things to Know About Delirium for more.
Drugs, alcohol, and other toxins (11%)
- Medication side-effects can cause delusions, hallucinations, or other forms of psychosis. Pay special attention to medications known to affect memory and thinking. Abuse of — or withdrawal from — alcohol or other substances can also cause psychosis symptoms.
Disease (10%)
- Many physical health problems can interfere with brain function. These include electrolyte problems such as abnormal levels of sodium, potassium, calcium, or magnesium in the blood, low levels of vitamin B12 or folate, thyroid problems, severe liver or kidney dysfunction, infections, and neurological diseases. Brain damage from minor strokes can also cause psychosis symptoms.
- Urinary tract infections can cause psychosis, but in my experience, they are almost never the cause of paranoia or other symptoms that have been going on for weeks, months, or longer. (A positive urine culture in an older person who has been having psychosis symptoms for a while probably reflects a colonized bladder.)
Depression (33%) and other “mood disorders,” including bipolar disease (5%)
- About 15% of people with major depression may experience psychotic symptoms. Delusions of guilt or deserved punishment are especially common.
Dementia (40%), including Alzheimer’s disease, Lewy-Body dementia, and others
- Delusions are extremely common in dementia, especially delusions of theft, spousal infidelity, abandonment, and persecution. Hallucinations (especially visual hallucinations) are also common, especially in Lewy-Body dementia. For more on how dementia is diagnosed, see How We Diagnose Dementia: The Practical Basics to Know.
Delusional disorder (2%) and schizophrenia-spectrum disorders (1%)
- These two conditions have many symptoms that overlap with those of dementia, delirium, or other conditions affecting thinking. Doctors must exclude these more common conditions before diagnosing a person with schizophrenia or delusional disorder. Schizophrenia affects an estimated 0.1-0.5% of people over age 65. Many were diagnosed earlier in life but some people can develop the condition later in life. Delusional disorder affects an estimated 0.03% of older adults.

The authors of this review article also note that it’s common for older adults to have vision and hearing problems, both of which can trigger or worsen delusions and hallucinations.

So as you can see, when older adults experience delusions, hallucinations, and paranoid thoughts, there is almost always something more going on with their health. Figuring out what is beneath the “crazy” or “irrational” or “paranoid” behavior is key.

Hence, I recommend you keep these six causes of paranoid symptoms in mind, as you try to find out more about how your mom has been doing.

I also recommend you check for other signs of problems with thinking or memory; you can learn about 21 signs I recommend checking for in the video below.

How to check on “levels of decline” and safety

It’s great for you to be proactive and want to help check on your mother safety and situation. Ultimately you’ll need to work with professionals, but you can speed the process along by checking for common red flags, and bringing them to the attention of your mother’s doctor.

As a geriatrician, I generally try to assess an older person in the following five domains:

Ability to manage key life tasks
- These include the ability to manage Activities of Daily Living (key tasks we usually learn as young children, such as walking, dressing, feeding ourselves, and toileting) and also Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (key tasks we learn as teenagers, such as managing finances, transportation, meal preparation, home maintenance, etc).
Safety red flags
- This includes signs of financial vulnerability or exploitation, risky driving, leaving the stove on, wandering, or signs of elder abuse.
Physical health red flags
- These include weight loss, declines in strength or physical abilities, falls, frequent ER visits, and complaints of pain.
Mood and brain health red flags
- These include common signs of depression (especially sadness and/or loss of interest in activities), signs of loneliness or isolation, new or excessive worrying, as well as other signs of memory and thinking problems
Medication management red flags
- These include signs of difficulty taking prescriptions as directed, checking on possible medication side-effects, and identifying medications that are on the Beer’s list of medications that older people should avoid or use with caution.

Because concerned family members often ask me about checking on an older parent, I’ve written a book, “When Your Aging Parent Needs Help,” that walks families through how to do this; it includes checklists based on the five sections above.

You can use the book and checklists to spot these red flags that often represent serious safety or health problems.

Now, no book is going to enable you to diagnose your parent. And no book can guarantee that you’ve identified and addressed the most important safety issues. You’ll need to work in person with professionals to do that.

But by being methodical in observing your mom and in documenting your observations, you will make it much easier for professionals to figure out why your mother has developed these behaviors you are concerned about.

Also, by identifying specific red flags or problem areas, you’ll be better equipped to work with your mom and other family members on addressing safety concerns. That’s because it’s much more effective to focus on issues that are specific and concrete (“I noticed that you seem to be having trouble with your grocery shopping”), rather than simply telling an aging parent that you are worried about their safety.

Tips on following up on safety issues and memory problems

Once you’ve identified safety issues and signs of underlying health problems, you’ll want to follow up. You’ll need health professionals to help evaluate and manage any underlying health problems, and you may find you need help from other types of experts as well.

If your older parent is paranoid and resisting your involvement, this often becomes a stuck spot for families.

How to get unstuck depends on the situation. Here are some ideas that often help:

Relay your concerns to your parent’s doctor. The doctor needs to know about the symptoms and problems. The doctor may also be able to persuade your older parent to accept some help, or even the presence of another family member during medical visits.
- Patient privacy laws (e.g. HIPAA) do not prevent families from providing information to a person’s doctor over that person’s objections.
- The doctor will probably not disclose health information to you but may do so under certain circumstances. That’s because when a patient is “incapacitated”, doctors are allowed to disclose relevant health information to family members, if they feel it’s in the best interest of the patient. For more on when health providers may disclose information to family members, see 10 Things to Know About HIPAA & Access to a Relative’s Health Information.
- If you send your concerns in writing, they will probably be scanned into the medical record.
- Also ask if any social work services are available through your parent’s health provider.
Contact organizations that support older adults and families, for assistance and for referrals. Some good ones to try include:
- Your local Area Agency on Aging; find it using the locator here.
- Family Caregiver Alliance. The navigator showing state-by-state services is especially nice.
- Local non-profits serving seniors and families. Try using Google to find these.
Get help from a geriatric care manager (now known as aging life care professionals) or other “senior problems” expert. This usually requires paying out-of-pocket, but can enable more hands-on assistance than is usually available through social workers and non-profits.
- The ideal person will be good at difficult conversations with older adults, will be able to help you communicate with doctors if necessary, and will know what local resources are available to address any safety or living issues you detect.
Get advice from other adult children who have faced similar situations. You can find caregiving forums and message boards online, where people share ideas on getting through these challenges.
- There’s an active forum of people caring for older relatives at AgingCare.com. You can find a lot of ideas and support there. However, most such forums have minimal moderation from professionals, so you should double-check on any medical, legal, or financial advice you get.
- Daughterhood.org is a website and community for people helping older parents. Look to see if they have a local “Circle” near you.
Consider contacting Adult Protective Services if you think this might qualify as self-neglect. Self-neglect means an older person is living in a way that puts his or her health, safety, or well-being at risk. It’s not uncommon for older adults with memory or thinking problems to self-neglect.
- This is considered a form of elder abuse and can be reported to Adult Protective Services (APS).
- For a good overview of self-neglect and how APS can get involved, see here.
- In most states, health providers and certain other professionals are “mandated reporters” for elder abuse and self-neglect, which means they are supposed to report any such suspected cases to APS.

When it comes to contacting the doctor and hiring an expert to help, it’s best if you can get your mom’s agreement before proceeding. (Or at least, not have her explicitly forbid you from doing these things). Here are some tips to help with your conversations:

Use “I” statements as much as possible. “I’ve noticed you’ve been calling people during the night. I’ve noticed you sometimes have difficulty with your words. I’m concerned and I’ve heard it’s important to have such symptoms evaluated by a doctor, because they can be due to treatable medical problems.”
Frame any suggestions you make as a way to help your mother achieve her goals. For most older adults, these include living at home for as long as possible, maintaining good brain function and physical function, and otherwise remaining as independent as possible.
Avoid relying on logic. Logic never works well when it comes to emotionally-charged subjects. And it especially doesn’t work if people are experiencing any difficulties with memory or thinking. So don’t expect your mom to be logical and don’t rely on logical arguments to convince her.

For more on approaching a parent who is resistant to help, I explain how to do this in my free online training for families:

Now, if you find it causes your mother intense anxiety or agitation to discuss your concerns and your suggestions for helping her, it may be reasonable to just proceed. After all, you do have reasons to believe that some kind of health issue is affecting her thinking.

So especially if you’ve identified any safety problems, it’s reasonable to move ahead despite her preference that you not intervene.

In closing, I’ll reiterate that this is a very tough situation to navigate, and it usually takes time and persistence for families to make headway. Do try to take care of yourself as you work through this. Connecting with others facing similar challenges is a great way to get support and practical ideas on what to do next.

Good luck!

This article was last reviewed and updates were made in March 2025.

4 Oral Medications FDA-Approved to Treat Dementia

The Four Most Commonly Used Types of Medications That Dampen Brain Function

What is Mild Cognitive Impairment?

7 Common Problems to Check for and Address for Healthier Aging

The Healthy Aging Checklist

Paranoia, false accusations and psychosis

6 causes of paranoia and psychosis in aging

How to check on “levels of decline” and safety

Tips on following up on safety issues and memory problems

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