When your elderly loved one needs support in the home, it’s reasonable to look into hiring an in-home health care aide or nurse. Caregivers can be an excellent source of information and may be helpful to your family, but they are compensated fairly for this work. They should not be accepting gifts from the people they’re helping, especially if those people are weak or vulnerable.
It’s possible that an elderly person could be taken advantage of by a caregiver, which is why it is so important for families to be involved in their loved one’s care and to look for signs of fraud or financial abuse.
What are red flags that a caregiver may be manipulating an elder?
There are a couple of red flags to watch out for. The first is isolating the elderly person from their family. Doing this, it’s possible that the caregiver could convince them to start giving them access to their accounts or could push them to change their will to help the caregiver in some way. Depending on the person, the elderly individual may not recognize who the caregiver is correctly and become confused, making it much easier for the caregiver to take advantage of them.
Another big red flag is if your loved one suddenly assigns the caregiver as their power of attorney. Whether the financial or health care power of attorney is assigned, it’s inappropriate for a third-party caregiver to take over this role unless the family is in agreement as well (in most cases).
A third red flag would be if you notice that your loved one’s accounts have changed. Not being able to access their past bank account or seeing new accounts open up should be a big sign that something isn’t right.
These are three red flags to watch out for. The risk of bringing a caregiver into the home is that there is the chance that the person could try to manipulate your elderly loved one into including them in their will or giving them assets while they’re still alive. This is a major problem that you should address as quickly as possible if you notice it.