This lady’s son made her see a doctor in August 2025 to diagnose her with moderate/severe Alzheimer’s. He never gave her the results after her repeated requests. Then he took her to see a lawyer to draw up a trust. She has five children but he listed himself as the sole beneficiary. She trusted him and didn’t read these documents. She was living in her own home and then he put her in independent living at a senior community in September 2025. Two weeks ago she was questioning him on something and he told her she was totally incapacitated mentally and physically and couldn’t make any decisions for herself. And if she pushed him, he would put her in memory care. She calls me regularly and doesn’t know what to do, she totally trusted her son and realizes now that was a mistake. Her other kids are afraid to stand up to this son. Is there anything she can do to make some decisions? He moved her out of state and she wants to go back where she lived before,
An Elder Law Attorney would only speak with the Client, not with the grown children unless something needs to be verified. I know when my took my parents to an Elder Law Attorney to get a Trust and update all the other legal documents, my parents wanted me in the room, but the Attorney only conversed with my parents, I only observed.
Your friend sounds like she is still thinking clearly if she was able to text the pdf file to you.
It seems as if your friend doesn't understand these things, and you don't either. The son may be doing what he needs to do to provide care for her from her own funds. As for threatening to "put" her in memory care, it takes evaluations from doctors and the facility itself to determine if she even qualifies to get in. If she has moderate to severe dementia, she will need 24/7 care soon. By the time someone reaches that stage, they often don't understand their true situation. They confabulate (a fancy way of saying they tell lies) and seem perfectly believable at times, and they think they are telling the truth. This could be the case with your friend.
She's fortunate to have such a good friend as you have been, but it's time to back off. If you're talking only with her, you don't know the whole story. Your role is to be kind and supportive. This situation will eventually play out, but for now, you need to sit back and let others be responsible. I wish you peace in doing just that.
But...it would not be unheard of that, if you persist in trying to correct this perceived "wrong", YOUR motives might very well be called into question. There may come a time when people misconstrue your intentions to be helpful and instead perceive your actions as trying to convince your friend with dementia to disinherit one (or possibly more) of her children in order to, perhaps, get that share of your friend's money for yourself. Indeed, if your friend has dementia, there may come a time when it is SHE who is accusing you of trying to steal her money. You would not be the first person to have a false accusation made against you, and you won't be the last.
Which is why I reiterate my advice to stay out of this...let your friend vent, and make sympathetic noises, but don't take it any further than that. Unless and until you have definitive proof - beyond what your friend is telling you - that this son has intentions to steal his mother's money.
If this son is/was after her money, as seems to be the implication here, he wouldn't have "put" her in an IL, he would have let her wander around her own home and therefore not spend the money that an IL costs.
The OP needs to think long and hard about the wisdom in getting overly involved in this!
Is it possible that she is showtiming on the phone to you and that she does need a POA to make her decisions? Where is her house now? Sometimes elderly folks with dementia say all kinds of things that aren't true but they believe are true because of their dementia.
And sometimes an unscrupulous son or daughter etc will manipulate someone into something especially if assets are involved. What does the son get out of putting her in memory care? Do her drs agree that she needs memory care? Everyone has to be evaluated, they can't just "be put in to memory care".
If the report from the doctor in August 2025 said she had moderate/severe Alzheimer's, then it was illegal for the lawyer to create the Trust and have her sign it, because she wasn't competent. So the Trust can be revoked as it was not created validly.
If she gets a second doctor's evaluation that says she does not have moderate/severe Alzheimer's and is competent, then she can revoke or amend the Trust.
Do her other children know that her son did this, making himself the sole beneficiary and disinheriting them? Maybe that information will bring them around to helping her instead of trusting the son.
Did he use a POA signed by her to move her into independent living? If he doesn't have her POA, then he can't force her to stay there, nor can he / could he sell her house. (Did he? What happened to it?) If the POA is dated after the diagnosis, it is invalid because she was not competent to sign. If she gave him POA prior to that, then the doctor's statement might be sufficient.
Why are her other children afraid of this one?
My guess is the son in charge is selling off all her paid for rental properties that are worth a little less than two million (they are on Zillow) in order to have nothing in her name so in the future when she needs memory care, the state will have to pay for that, leaving him free and clear with all her assets.
I don’t know if I should talk to one of her daughters and give her the legal documents to take any action as she sees fit. Maybe that is the best solution, and then I will close my eyes and ears from here forward.
The one short page letter from the doctor says she has moderate/severe Alzheimer’s, which I find hard to believe. She would like to move back and have someone else in charge, but legally as it stands, her son has stripped her of any decision making. Does she need a second doctors assessment before seeing the attorney?