The difficulty of helping carers to protect people with dementia from falling victim to scammers or making poor financial.choices is such an important topic in our society where the average life expectancy is now much greater than it was in previous generations. Thank you to Mrs Pillay for raising such an important topic and thank you to Paul Clitheroe for his informative and sensitive discussion of the issue.

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As part of the gradual deterioration accompanying dementia aggression plays a big part usually directed towards the person giving the care. Having a drivers licence taken from a male person who has driven all his life and then removal off a credit card from a wallet may cause extreme trauma in the home

In my husband's case it was an addiction to Readers Digest and their continual offers of huge sums of money to we won if they bought the latest book on offer. These books still litter our bookcases mostly unopened and unwanted

I also found The Dementia Association extremely supportive but it boils down to a one on one situation as in my case carers coming to the house were not welcome and made to feel so

It is important that the partner of a dementia sufferer is 100% over all the financial matters and using their Power of Attorney have matters arranged so that their affairs can be managed as seamlessly as possible and if possible a family member is fully aware and also has the power to operate accounts if the situation arises

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The most difficult part is that people with dementia think that there's nothing wrong with them. On the positive side your husband still rings his bank, I'm hoping that at least they will tell him it's a scam. Like my husband he will gradually forget how to use his phone, maybe you could put his phone on silent or block some of those numbers and program in only the contacts he knows like family and friends. it's not easy, power of attorney or not you still have to live with him. I was lucky with my husband, that he wanted nothing to do with credit cards, and I've always done most of the banking. Perhaps when his card expires, you could confiscate his new card when it arrives in the mail, and say that it's still coming , it all depends on how bad his dementia is whether or not you could get away with that. Obviously you're still going through the difficult and frustrating stage with him. I'm gradually getting past that stage with my husband, before he got to the stage he's at now he was trying to put a stop to nearly everything thing I tried to do, and still tries, but it's not as bad now as his dementia has progressed to advanced dementia, and I'm learning how to deal with things a bit better now as it was starting to affect me mentally as well as physically. Dementia is a terrible disease not only for the person that has it, but also the family, especially for a partner who has to care for someone with dementia every day.

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Reading this article has helped me be a but more kind to myself- thank you. I have had to deal with these issues with my older sister while holding down a stressful full time job over the past few years She is now in residential care and is so unhappy, telling me she will be home soon. It has been nothing short of a nightmare. I have had to take from her what is most previous to us all= here indepedance..thanks for the acknowledgement !! Now i fear i will sucome to this dreadful affliction and my sons will have this stress.. I would rather die. There is no end to what scammers will go to... ros

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It has been the greatest challenge of my life taking over my mother's financial affairs and trying to give her some autonomy now that she has dementia. Firstly I tried to get her Debit card changed to a simple eftpos card because she was doing mail orders to companies promising she had won $25,000 if she just ordered from the next catalogue. She had 10 can openers and 12 pashminas in a cupboard full of other unopened junk.

I also discovered she was giving her debit card number to charities over the phone and they were taking money out of her account monthly. (25% of her pension was disappearing monthly).

Her credit union told me they could not give her an eftpos only card. So I opened an account with a bank that could provide one and now it only has $300 in it and she can use it when she is taken out with others. She still gives this number over the phone but the cold callers cant use it nor can the mail order companies she still tries to buy from.

The challenge of getting rid of the direct debits to charities and the constant flow of direct marketing materials in her mailbox and inserts in her magazines was another far more difficult challenge.

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