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Legal & planning · Quick answer

What Happens When She Can No Longer Sign

The window closes quietly, and nobody announces it. What you can still do before it does, and what it costs if you miss it.

By Anthony Newell, FounderClinically reviewedAugust 13, 20267 min read

Key takeaways

  • A power of attorney must be signed while the person still has capacity. A dementia diagnosis does not by itself remove capacity — but it starts a clock.
  • You need two separate documents: a durable power of attorney for finances and a healthcare power of attorney. One does not cover the other.
  • “Durable” is the word that matters. Without it the authority ends exactly when incapacity begins, which is when you need it.
  • Capacity is decision-specific and fluctuating. Someone in the early or middle stage can often still sign, particularly earlier in the day.
  • If the window has closed, the remaining route is guardianship or conservatorship — a court case, typically thousands of dollars and months of time.
  • Guardianship also removes rights. A court takes decision-making away from her and gives it to someone else, with ongoing reporting to the court.
  • Do not rely on a downloadable form. Banks reject them, and you find out on the day it matters.

Why this is urgent the week of the diagnosis

Because the legal ability to plan disappears before the ability to talk does, and nobody tells you when it goes.

A power of attorney is a document one person signs to give another the authority to act for them. To sign it, she has to have capacity. Once capacity is gone, she cannot grant that authority to anyone, and no amount of family agreement substitutes for it.

There is no announcement. No clinician says you have about seven months left to sign things. Families discover the window has closed when a bank declines to speak to them, or a facility asks who holds authority, or a house needs selling and the only name on the deed belongs to someone who can no longer understand what selling means.

What capacity actually means

Not a diagnosis. A functional test, applied to a specific decision, at a specific moment.

The standard generally asks whether the person can:

Three things follow from that. Capacity is decision-specific — someone may lack the capacity to manage a portfolio and retain the capacity to say who she trusts. It fluctuates, and mornings are often better than late afternoons. And it is not binary, which is why a diagnosis alone does not end the conversation.

An elder law attorney who does this regularly will assess capacity, document that assessment carefully, and sometimes arrange a physician's letter dated the same day. That paper trail is what stops the document being challenged later by a bank, a facility, or a relative.

What you actually need

Two powers of attorney at minimum, and several things that are not powers of attorney at all.

Do the bank walk while she can still come with you. Take the signed power of attorney to every institution and have it accepted and on file now. A document that has already been accepted is a very different thing from a document you present for the first time in a crisis, when the person who could have vouched for it can no longer speak for herself.

If the window has already closed

Then the route is guardianship, and it is worth understanding what that involves before anyone tells you it is straightforward.

Guardianship — called conservatorship in some states, and sometimes split between guardian of the person and conservator of the estate — is a court proceeding. Someone petitions, the court appoints an attorney for her and often an evaluator, there is a hearing, and a judge decides whether she is legally incapacitated and who should decide for her.

Everyone who has been through both will tell you the same thing: an afternoon in a lawyer's office two years earlier would have avoided all of it.

This month, in order

Frequently asked questions

Can someone with dementia still sign a power of attorney?
Frequently yes, particularly in the early and middle stages. The legal standard is not whether she has a diagnosis but whether she can understand what the document does, appreciate how it applies to her, reason about the choice, and express it. That capacity fluctuates — many people are clearest in the morning. An attorney experienced with this will assess it, document the assessment, and sometimes arrange a physician's letter the same day. That documentation is what protects the document later.
What is the difference between power of attorney and guardianship?
A power of attorney is something she gives, voluntarily, while she can. Guardianship is something a court takes from her and hands to someone else. The first costs a few hundred to a couple of thousand dollars and takes an afternoon. The second costs thousands, takes months, is public, and comes with annual reporting requirements that continue for the rest of her life.
Do I need one for money and another for medical decisions?
Yes. They are separate documents with separate authority, and they can name different people, which is sometimes the right call — the child who is good with money is not always the one you want at the bedside. Also consider a HIPAA authorization so you can be told things, and check whether her bank, brokerage and Social Security require their own forms. Social Security does not recognize a power of attorney at all; that requires a representative payee application.
Is a form from the internet good enough?
Sometimes, and the failures are expensive. Requirements for witnesses and notarization vary by state, some institutions insist on their own forms, and a bank that refuses a document has no obligation to explain itself. If the document is rejected after capacity is gone, guardianship is the only remaining route. A few hundred dollars spent on an elder law attorney is cheap insurance against a five-figure court process.

Related from Day to Day Dementia

Advance Directives and POLST for Dementia →Young-Onset Dementia and Money: What You Are Entitled To →The Medicaid Five-Year Look-Back, Explained →Telling Someone They Have Dementia →

The paperwork has a deadline nobody tells you about.

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Sources

  1. Alzheimer's Association. Legal Documents.
  2. American Bar Association Commission on Law and Aging. Adult Guardianship.
  3. Advance Directives. StatPearls, National Center for Biotechnology Information. Four-part capacity standard.
A gentle note. Day to Day Dementia offers peer support and education — nobody here is an attorney and none of this is legal advice. Capacity standards, document requirements, guardianship procedures and costs vary substantially by state and change over time. Have documents drafted by an elder law attorney licensed where you live. Downloadable forms fail often enough, and in exactly the circumstances where failure costs the most.