MIL’s anxiety about bank statements and bills. How can we ease her anxiety?

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MIL’s anxiety about bank statements and bills. How can we ease her anxiety?

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FIL passed away last year. We now realize MIL with cognitive decline cannot understand her bank statements at all. DH has been taking care of all the finances for her online, but he had statements and bills sent to her because he thought it will reassure her that there’s nothing to hide. Now he realized she is filled with anxiety reading those statements.

Every day she talks about those “papers” that she needs to “take care of” but can’t figure out how. She’s talking about going in to the bank in person so she can “ask questions”. DH explains it to her every day over the phone but non of the answer sticks because she has poor short term memory and cannot understand even a simple bill. She doesn’t realize or won’t admit that she can’t take care of her own finances.

Maybe DH should stop having the paper statements sent to her to eliminate the anxiety trigger? How can the family talk to her to ease that anxiety?

Alzheimer's & Dementia Cognitive Decline Financial Planning Financial POA

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If he is managing the bills there is no reason for her to get the statements nor bills.
Switch to paperless statements. He will still have records of transactions and she will not have to deal with "those papers"

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Whenever my mom got to the mail before I did, she would fret over bills coming in. She thought she had only $400 (a dream she had) and so wouldn't be able to pay the bills. It truly freaked her out. I did finally convince her that I would handle all the bills and she did not have worry about them. It was a huge struggle and she would sometimes forget what I told her. I wanted to send the bills to my brother, but he wouldn't have it, so I started paying them online. That ended it. So, yes, stop sending the "papers". She most likely won't know to worry if she doesn't see them. Good luck.

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Stop the bills and then tell her since she doesn’t owe anything they no longer are sending the bills. What a relief. No paper bill, nothing to pay!

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Thanks! I think we’ll go with this one. Hopefully it’ll work.

(5)

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When my mother received bills she would sometimes write letters back but not pay them. When we started intercepting her mail (including statements as she often thought they were bills) she panicked that they’d stopped coming because her money was all gone. We used the excuse that our rural mail is unreliable (a long-standing complaint of hers) so we’d gone paperless. She has also seen enough references to computers to accept that bills come through and are paid with those new-dangled computer things her grandkids use all the time. Besides POA, her account is joint with me which gives me online access. Every so often I print a statement from her account which shows all transactions for the paid bills and account balances. I use a debit card to pay for shopping so on the statement she sees money going out to a familiar grocery store name, pharmacy, etc. as opposed to just a cash withdrawal.

I am in Canada and have no idea how a joint account would affect Medicaid, etc, but I’ve found it the easiest way for us. Plus, when she becomes anxious, I immediately print a statement for her as of today’s date, which seems to provide some reassurance.

I hope you find some some of these suggestions helpful.

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I was kind of worried if we stop the paper statements she might have some sort of reaction like you described, i.e. thinking her money is gone. We’ll have to wait and see what happens, thanks for the heads up.

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Been there, done that!

Without even reading the other responses, your last paragraph has the answer:

"Maybe DH should stop having the paper statements sent to her to eliminate the anxiety trigger?"

When I took over mom's finances (due to confusion/errors of early dementia), I also thought it might be good to let the statements go to her. I quickly found out this was a bad idea.

I had temporarily forwarded all her mail to me, to get the billing statements, mailing addresses, phone numbers, etc, for all her bills. I called each one to change the billing address to my PO Box (she was 1.5 hrs away.) Her "filing" system left a lot to be desired - she would separate any multi-page bank statements and file them that way, and some items were missing (tax bill, needed for filing taxes for her!), etc.

Thankfully I did finally make the change of banking address, because one bill was missed - car/home insurance, only sent yearly, and she called to get checks. The checks were sent to me. She called again and they told her the checks were sent to me. She never said a word to me about it! Everything at that point came to me and was managed. Makes your life SO much easier!

One other thing I had to do, which is related, is to clear out ANY and ALL paperwork still in her place. She started digging out old stuff and getting confused or ideas that were driving me nuts! Old W2s, which show "Death Benefit" because it was my dad's pension, were interpreted as someone died and left her money, but it doesn't say who! Every couple of days I would get this call!!! I tried showing her the tax returns, the dollar amounts, even the dates on the W2s (several years old), but that last one was met with "they just came in the mail!" ANYTHING on the kitchen table "just came in the mail." So, I had YB take her out for a bit and took EVERY scrap of paper I could find (I knew most of the locations, checked a few others.) It is kind of funny that she remembered there was "something", but could not recall what it was. That didn't last more than a day.

She never missed the bills or making payments. Out of sight, out of mind, pretty much. Taking the finances over AND doing the clean sweep was the best thing I could do and I highly recommend you do this as well. It's great when you can include them and they can still "follow along", but clearly she can't. Do yourselves and her a favor - change the mailing address of her account(s).

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Thank you for your reply. It’s reassuring that others have taken the measures that we’re about to take.

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I agree with setting up automatic bill payments and stopping paper bills from going to the house. It would be better to do this with her present and to write it down in a "reminder book" so she can refer to it when needed. Her financial POA should handle all of this. I would suggest that this person remind her that the finances are being taken care of "by the bank" and show a simplified account statement - "balance of money in account" and "all bills paid" on a monthly basis. Intime, the "showing of account" information can be discontinued.

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Fill out a change of address and have them sent in her name c/o your husband and address or get a PO box with both names. My guess is out of sight, out of mind or it will be soon. My mom was struggling with bill paying tasks and one day by pure chance I got the mail with a different looking envelope that I decided to open addressed to her and/or dad...thank goodness I did, it was from United Health Care their supplemental insurance and the bill had not been paid for two months. With dad's blessings I took possession of the check book, and any other checkbooks we could find, and within a couple months I had the check book figured out and balanced. I also had a bout 15 lbs of old statements and stuff to be shredded she had stuffed in drawers. I assume your husband has POA and the bank is aware as well should she show up and ask any questions...

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Ludmila, ditto to not giving her the statements or bills at all. Is she still driving? Would she be able to get to the bank? My MIL kept forgetting where she stored her checkbooks and when we were organizing her house I found dozens and dozens of boxes of checkbooks. Has someone gone to her house to go through and make sure all her sensitive information is not accessible by her or anyone else? Also, we discovered that my MIL was thinking that she had eaten meals when in fact she had food rotting in her fridge. I'd call her every day and ask what she ate and she'd tell me -- except when I went there none of it was true, she just thought she had eaten. This is a big concern, especially if she is supposed to be taking meds for anything. I don't think you'll be able to talk to her to ease anxiety as you have said yourself she forgets what you told her. This is a losing battle and please don't keep putting energy into this. Maybe time to consider an agency caregiver a few hours a day, or Assisted Living. Eventually your family won't be able to keep up with her needs. There is anxiety meds that could help her but someone would need to administer it to her every day. Hope this is helpful. I wish you all the best in helping her!

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we managed to take the car key away. Although she still talks about driving, she doesn’t have the keys anymore. She is in a senior living place and recently she’s been having her meals together with a couple of her friends in room ( they closed the dining room ). We realized that she’ll probably need memory care or assisted living in the future, but unsure when that would be.

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My mother gets anxious about owning her home and the bills that need paying. To decrease her anxiety I reassure her I pay all the bills and house tax and my name is on the deed with her, and I accept full responsibility for all the finances. She then becomes less anxious and forgets about the finances for awhile. I think it is a very good idea not to send the statements and bills to her any longer.

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I am very familiar with this since my mother behaved the exact same way. After my father died she continued paying bills and reading statements but over time she began her cognitive decline. It was so sad to watch since she had always taken care of the books. It made her feel very proud of watching out for the family finances. It got to the point to where I would come over and help with the books but soon it was clear that she just couldn't understand it anymore. I then started having the few bills she had paid automatically each month from her account. She noticed a couple of times but I would just try and remind her that it was being taken care of for us. She finally stopped asking about them. The last item was the check book and the bank statements. Month after month she would try to reconcile the check book but it would only upset her more when she couldn't get it to balance. Finally one day when she was very upset about it I just asked "would it be better for you if I handled the finances from now on"? She seemed so relieved I had asked. The few times I had asked before she was not ready to give them up. But now she was. In transition, I would make copies of the statements and mark them "My copy" and "Mom's copy". We pretended to go over them but she really lost interest fast. The one hiccup I had was with the physical checkbook. It was in my possession since I thought she would not miss it but one day when she was particularly frustrated from the dementia, she accused me of stealing her money. I understand now that happens a lot with people with dementia. So I brought the checkbook back to her apartment with a few checks in it. I told her it was hers and she could put it in her purse for safe keeping. That was the last time she ever asked about her finances again. When she passed away I found the checkbook still in her purse.

MIL’s anxiety about bank statements and bills. How can we ease her anxiety?

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