Understanding eSignature Lawfulness for General Power of Attorney

How to eSign a document: eSignature lawfulness for General Power of Attorney

hey there care Blazers welcome back to the place where we talk about everything dementia doctor Natalie here and in today's video I'm going to talk about power of attorney it's a topic that comes up a lot when people talk about dementia but there's a lot of confusion around it so in today's video I'm gonna clear up just what is a power of attorney and whether or not you need one for your loved one if you are new to care Blazers welcome we'd love to have you join the family all you have to do is hit that red subscribe button on your screen it is completely free and it will let you know whenever I post a new video also if you have any questions about dementia go ahead and leave them in the comments below and I will do my best to answer them in a future video [Music] let's talk power of attorney there are two kinds medical power of attorney and financial power of attorney you may also have heard of them referred to as durable medical power of attorney or durable financial power of attorney if you are caring for a loved one with dementia I hope your loved one with dementia has a power of attorney in fact your we should all have powers of attorneys even now but it's extremely important for somebody who has dementia to make sure they have a power of attorney so here's what it is a power of attorney is basically a document that identifies who you would want to make medical decisions on your behalf if there ever comes a time when you are unable to make them yourself a classic simple example would be if you were in a serious car accident and were unconscious for a period of time your power of attorney can then step in and make medical decisions on your behalf since you're clearly not in a position to be able to understand anything that's going on you're not even able to speak so if somebody has something like dementia a disease that progressively gets worse to the point when they're thinking is completely impaired and including their language they may not even be able to speak it is important that they have a trusted individual who's able to speak up and make decisions on their behalf now I should say a power of attorney does not mean that that person can step in and start making decisions about their loved one from day one remember I said we should all have power of attorneys that doesn't mean that our power of attorneys can start making decisions for us about our medical care there has to be some sort of determination usually by a primary care doctor or a psychologist that says that this person is no longer able to make independent decisions about their medical care also having a diagnosis of dementia doesn't automatically mean that a power of attorney goes into effect there are plenty of people out there in the early stages of dementia or in the mild stage of dementia who are still able to take active part into their medical care and who is able to understand and reason might need a little bit of support and extra help but they're still able to make decisions about their health care so it's only when that disease starts to progress more into the moderate or severe stages when that loved one can no longer make reasonable decisions about their healthcare that the power of attorney goes into effect also it's worth noting that just because a power of attorney is in effect and let's say you're in the position now where you have to basically make all decisions about your loved one's health care it doesn't mean that you should completely exclude your loved one from being involved in discussions or conversations about what they want to happen with their healthcare if your loved one is still in a position where they're able to have a reasonable discussion and participate then you should try to use them as much as possible and involve them as much as possible in their care if that makes sense for your loved one situation so in the early stages of the disease it's important that you have conversation with your loved one about what they would want to happen to them in the event that things get much worse and they're unable to verbalize or they're unable to fully participate in their health care you being the power of attorney does not mean that you get to make whatever medical decisions you want to make for your loved one with dementia it means that you as the power of attorney get to make medical decisions based on what you know or you think you know your loved one would have wanted if they were still in a position to be able to say what they wanted from a clear sound mind so does that make sense you're not making decisions based on what you want for your loved one you're making decisions based on what you think your loved one would have wanted so ideally in a perfect world people would have sat down with whoever the power of attorney is going to be and have discussions about what they would want do they want life support do they want feeding tubes and etc ideally me and my husband would sit down and I would explain to him what I would want to happen if I was in that position where I was unconscious so I realized that we don't live in an ideal world and sometimes that's not possible so then you just want to keep in mind knowing what you know about your loved one the things that were important to them there are values you try to make a decision from that frame of mind being a power of attorney is a serious commitment it means that you are making serious sometimes life-threatening decisions about your loved ones healthcare at a time when they're not able to make it anymore and at a time when they may absolutely disagree with what you're doing so sometimes as dementia progresses and people start to lose their ability to reason and think clearly they may want things to happen that are impossible or that just can't be done or that are completely unsafe for their health so for example your loved one with dementia may want to continue living home alone but it's completely unsafe for them their life is in jeopardy and you're in the position of having to give them increased supervision or move them to a safer place so you're doing something that in the moment your loved one with dementia doesn't agree with and doesn't want to happen but you're doing it knowing that this is what they would have wanted to happen when they were of sound mine or this is what needs to happen to try to keep them safe so each state has their own medical power of attorney form they're pretty easy fairly simple to fill out you could if your loved one gets care a hospital you could ask your primary care provider to put you in touch with a social worker who's usually able to help get you the paperwork needed for medical power of attorney and also have that scanned into their medical records so that your medical providers your loved ones medical providers know that they can talk to you and share information with you about their health care since recording this video on power of attorney and dementia I received an email from a Care placer who asks some really awesome questions about power of attorney not knowing that I had already had this video planned so I am putting in this slide and adding it after the fact to help answer some of his really great questions so he did ask what is a durable power of attorney and I kind of covered that earlier but basically a power of attorney is a designated person that is able to make decisions on somebody's behalf when they're no longer able to do so themselves now the difference between a durable power of attorney and a non durable or general power of attorney is that a general or non durable power of attorney goes away once a person becomes incapacitated so this type of non durable POA that's essentially for a specific task like let's say you have a legal paper or you need to sign some legal documents but you're not able to be in the same state well you can appoint a non durable POA to go act on your behalf and sign those papers and so once they do that then that power of attorney goes away so when it comes to dementia care we're really talking about durable power of attorney so when your loved one with dementia is no longer able to make sound medical decisions on their own the power of attorney goes into effect and stays in place so also as mentioned a there can be a medical power of attorney and a financial power of attorney so medical power of attorney is strictly for medical healthcare decisions and financial power of attorney is for financial matters a medical power of attorney does not extend over into financial and a financial power of attorney cannot extend over into medical matters now that being said there could be one person serving in both roles so you could complete paperwork for a medical power of attorney and list the same person as you've listed in your financial power of attorney paperwork now you can only have one main power of attorney for your medical power of attorney and one main power of attorney for your financial power of attorney so you can identify an alternate however so the reason you can't have two of the same power of attorneys for instance you can't have if your siblings you can't have a brother and a sister both be medical power of attorneys because that leads to a lot of potentially sticky issues disagreements arguments difficulty making decisions because maybe the two power of attorneys don't agree so that's why there's always one main person identified with an alternate backup in case for some reason in that primary power of attorney was not available also as already mentioned but I want to highlight because of this this care plays are specific questions being a power of attorney is a serious commitment so you need to ask yourself if you're going to be able to carry out the best interest of your loved one if they get to the point where they're no longer able to do that themselves it means that you're going to be responsible for making some pretty significant medical decisions or financial decisions and you have to know that other family members may not agree with those decisions finally it's really important to have power of attorney paperwork completed sooner rather than later so if your loved one with dementia progresses too far along in their disease that they're really unable to understand the paperwork or appoint a trusted power of attorney then they're not gonna understand the seriousness of what they're signing and it's gonna be too late for them to appoint a power of attorney care Blazers I hope this video has been helpful to you let me know what other questions you have bye a comment below I hope that all of you guys have a wonderful week up ahead and I will be back in about a week bye [Music] [Music]