After a parent’s dementia diagnosis, the first two conversations are usually with the doctor who made the diagnosis and with an elder law attorney, because the papers that let someone else handle your dad’s money and medical decisions have to be signed while he still has the legal capacity to sign them. You may be reading this with the diagnosis folder still within reach, his bank app open on your phone and a power-of-attorney packet that never got finished. And if what you have watched at home does not quite match the label on that folder, because his judgment or his personality shifted before his memory did, it is fair to wonder whose list of next steps deserves your trust.

The rest of the order matters almost as much as the first call. Each professional owns one piece: the doctor owns the diagnosis, the attorney owns the documents, public programs own the benefits and a care manager owns the daily care. What usually has no owner is the connection between those pieces, and that is the work of Jessica Lizel Cannon of The Proactive Caregiver, a dementia caregiving strategist who spent more than 15 years caring for her own mother through frontotemporal dementia.

None of what follows has to be finished tonight. The aim is to put the few decisions that close on your dad’s capacity into the right hands this month, in an order that keeps the family from paying twice for the same facts.

Estimated reading time: 11 min read

Key Insights

A new dementia diagnosis starts a medical question and a legal one at the same moment, and they run at different speeds. The medical question (what this is, exactly) is not always settled at the first appointment. The legal question runs on your dad’s capacity to sign, and it keeps moving while the medical answer is pending. So the first month puts the capacity-dependent work first: one page of facts, a return visit to the diagnosing doctor, an elder law attorney for the signature documents and the public helplines in the same week. After that comes someone who reads the money against the disease timeline, and a care manager once the daily care needs coordinating.

Table of Contents

• Step 1: Put the diagnosis, the documents and the money on one page
• Step 2: Go back to the doctor who made the diagnosis
• Step 3: Book an elder law attorney while your dad can still sign
• Step 4: Use the public helplines in the same week
• Step 5: Bring in someone who reads the money and the timeline together
• Step 6: Add a care manager when the daily care needs coordinating
• Who does what after a dementia diagnosis, at a glance
• When the order is clear and the decisions are not

Step 1: Put the diagnosis, the documents and the money on one page

Before the first appointment, spend an evening putting four things on paper. Every professional you call will ask for the same facts, and if nobody has gathered them, the family pays each person to collect them again. The list below follows what the Alzheimer’s Association suggests bringing to a first meeting with a lawyer: an itemized list of assets, copies of every estate planning document and the contact details of everyone involved.

The documents deserve a closer look than the list alone. Having a power of attorney in a drawer and having one that works are different things. For each paper you find, note when it was signed, who it names and whether a bank or doctor’s office has ever accepted it. In Jessica’s own published words, a generic internet form “often fails the moment a memory-care admissions office or a bank compliance desk asks for something else”, so a document that exists can still leave a family stuck.

• The diagnosis: the exact type of dementia named, the date and the doctor or clinic that made it
• Every will, trust, power of attorney, advance directive and HIPAA authorization, with the date each was signed
• Accounts, income sources, insurance policies (health, life and long-term care) and recurring bills
• Names and numbers for family members, his doctors and any financial planner or accountant

Step 2: Go back to the doctor who made the diagnosis

The diagnosing doctor or memory clinic owns the medical answer, and the family should have it in writing, with the type of dementia named. Medicare Part B covers a separate visit with a provider to review cognitive function fully, confirm the diagnosis and develop a care plan, and you can bring someone to that visit to listen and help answer questions.

Ask two things while you are there. First, whether anything else could explain what the family is seeing, because a second opinion is reasonable when the label does not fit the changes at home; her guide to getting a second opinion on a dementia diagnosis sets out what a fuller evaluation includes. Second, whether the doctor has any concern about your dad’s ability to understand legal papers, since a doctor can help gauge mental capacity when the family is unsure.

The type of dementia changes the order of almost everything after this visit. Frontotemporal disorders can first show up as trouble managing money while short-term memory is still intact, and they are sometimes mistaken for Alzheimer’s. When judgment goes first, the signing window can be shorter than a memory-based plan assumes; see how frontotemporal dementia changes the money and the legal timeline. Before you leave, also ask whether the practice takes part in Medicare’s GUIDE Model, a pilot program that may offer some people living with dementia and their unpaid caregivers additional support, and whether Part B caregiver training fits your dad’s treatment plan.

Step 3: Book an elder law attorney while your dad can still sign

The attorney owns the legal instruments, and the deadline is the signature. The financial documents (a will, a durable power of attorney for finances and a living trust) have to be created while the person still has the legal capacity to make decisions. The Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration puts the stakes plainly: a power of attorney is only enforceable if the person signing it is legally competent at the time.

Jessica’s Financial Wellness pillar names five documents every caregiver needs: a durable power of attorney for finances, a medical power of attorney, a HIPAA authorization, a living will and a last will. Which of these your dad can still sign, and in what form for your state, is the attorney’s call, because the capacity a document requires varies from one type to another.

Her working rule on timing is that a family typically has around a year after a cognitive diagnosis to get the powers of attorney, the advance directives and the bank’s own forms signed while capacity lasts. She frames it as honest urgency, never a sales countdown: missing that window can leave a family facing guardianship, locked accounts and full retail care costs. Capacity is also judged document by document and can narrow sooner when judgment changes first, and nothing in the system sends a reminder as it runs down. Families find elder law attorneys through the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys directory or a local bar association, and when cost is the barrier, the Area Agency on Aging and state legal aid offices are the usual routes.

Step 4: Use the public helplines in the same week

Two national lines cost the family nothing. The Alzheimer’s Association 24/7 Helpline, 800-272-3900, connects you with a live person for information, local resources and crisis help, and its longer care consultations are with master’s-level dementia experts who build an action plan with you. The Eldercare Locator, a public service of the federal Administration for Community Living at 1-800-677-1116, connects families to local services for older adults, including the Area Agency on Aging.

Here is the part most families learn later than they should. Medicare.gov states plainly that Medicare does not pay for long-term care, meaning the help with bathing, dressing and the rest of daily life that most people with dementia eventually need, and that Medicare Supplement Insurance does not pay for it either. Knowing that early changes every conversation that follows.

Step 5: Bring in someone who reads the money and the timeline together

The doctor will not read the bank statements, and the attorney is rarely the person who models what care will cost as needs grow. Money trouble can be one of the first signs of dementia, so someone should be reading statements every month, with bills on automatic payment and long-term care costs planned for early. A CPA or financial professional can carry the accounting. What most families still lack is someone whose job is to connect the money to the disease.

That connection is the role Jessica Lizel Cannon fills as a dementia caregiving strategist. She is a CPA with 28 years of financial experience and a Certified Dementia Practitioner, and she reads the diagnosis, the accounts, the legal window and the family’s roles as one picture, so the attorney is asked to solve the right problem and the money questions are answered before a care decision gets made in a hurry. She works alongside the attorney and the physician, on the family’s side of the table.

Reading the two together catches what a single-domain view misses. A five-year Medicaid look-back is not the family’s only deadline when your dad’s capacity to sign may run out first. Unopened bills, new credit card purchases or money missing from an account can be the disease speaking before anyone has named it. And as the Financial Wellness pillar of her Method puts it, most families lose money they did not have to lose, through missing documents, misunderstanding Medicare or making decisions without full information.

She learned this inside her own family. She spent more than 15 years caring for her mother, and as her About page tells it, that began with four years of misdiagnoses (vascular dementia, bipolar disorder, early-onset Alzheimer’s, and finally frontotemporal dementia). She lost herself in the process, and her marriage strained under the weight.

Step 6: Add a care manager when the daily care needs coordinating

When the questions turn to who is helping at home, whether the house is still safe or where your dad will live as his needs grow, a geriatric care manager, also called an Aging Life Care professional, takes on the coordination. These professionals are often nurses or social workers, and their work is a long-term care plan built around your dad’s needs.

Bring the same one-page record. A care manager plans around the documents and budget the earlier calls put in place.

Who does what after a dementia diagnosis, at a glance

The whole sequence, with what each person owns and when they usually come in:

When the order is clear and the decisions are not

Some families come through these calls with the documents signed and a shared plan. Others find the diagnosis is still in question, the siblings disagree about what comes first or the numbers do not add up. That is usually the point where another list stops helping and the family needs someone to sit with its actual facts.

As the author of “The Proactive Caregiver”, Jessica works with families nationwide through virtual coaching, with in-person roots in Austin and Central Texas. Her monthly coaching follows the five connected pillars of The Proactive Caregiver Method, so the disease, the documents, the family and the money are worked as one plan rather than four separate errands. The first step is a short video conversation about whether coaching fits your family, or whether a different specialist should come first.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What if my dad insists nothing is wrong and will not see a lawyer?

A: That refusal is often part of the illness. Jessica’s Dementia Care Navigation pillar describes anosognosia, a neurological condition in which the brain cannot perceive its own impairment, so arguing the diagnosis rarely moves him. While he has legal capacity, the decisions remain his, and he should take part in the planning for as long as he can. Any handover of financial authority goes better when it is done with respect for his independence.

Q: Can we use online forms instead of an elder law attorney?

A: Sometimes. Certain legal documents can be completed without a lawyer, and a lawyer is not always required to name a financial proxy. The risk sits in whether the form works when it is needed: whether it is durable, whether it suits your state and whether his bank will accept it. Her guide to whether you need an elder law attorney, and what it costs explains when families can keep the engagement small.

Q: What happens if Dad can no longer sign the documents?

A: Then the route usually runs through a court. When capacity is gone and no valid power of attorney exists, a family generally has to ask a court to appoint a guardian, a slower and costlier process that needs a lawyer to file. The differences are laid out in guardianship versus power of attorney for a parent with dementia, and an attorney can also check whether an older document he signed years ago still holds.

Q: Is a dementia caregiving strategist the same as a financial planner?

A: The two overlap on the accounts. What Jessica Lizel Cannon adds as a dementia caregiving strategist is the link between the money and the disease: what care is likely to cost as needs change, what Medicare will not pay, which documents still depend on your parent’s signature and how the family divides the work.

Citations

• Alzheimers.gov (National Institute on Aging): Planning After a Dementia Diagnosis. Confirms that financial directives, including a durable power of attorney for finances, must be created while the person still has legal capacity, that geriatric care managers are often nurses or social workers who help build a long-term care plan, and that Area Agencies on Aging and the Eldercare Locator can help with legal needs. https://www.alzheimers.gov/life-with-dementia/planning-after-diagnosis
• Alzheimer’s Association: Planning Ahead for Legal Matters. Explains that a lawyer can determine the capacity a document requires, that a doctor can help gauge mental capacity, that some documents can be done without a lawyer, and what to bring to a first meeting with an elder law attorney. https://www.alz.org/help-support/caregiving/financial-legal-planning/planning-ahead-for-legal-matters
• Alzheimer’s Association: 24/7 Helpline. Describes the round-the-clock line at 800-272-3900 and its care consultations with master’s-level dementia experts. https://www.alz.org/help-support/resources/helpline
• National Institute on Aging: Managing Money Problems for People With Dementia. Notes that money problems may be one of the first noticeable signs of dementia and recommends monthly statement review, automatic bill payments, early long-term care planning and a respectful transfer of financial authority. https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/legal-and-financial-planning/managing-money-problems-people-dementia
• Medicare.gov: Cognitive Assessment Coverage. Confirms that Part B covers a separate visit to review cognitive function, establish or confirm a dementia diagnosis and develop a care plan, that a caregiver may attend, and that some people living with dementia and their unpaid caregivers may get additional support through the GUIDE Model pilot program. https://www.medicare.gov/coverage/cognitive-assessment-care-plan-services
• Medicare.gov: Caregiver Training Services. Confirms that Part B covers individual or group caregiver training, without the patient present, when a provider decides the training fits the patient’s treatment plan. https://www.medicare.gov/coverage/caregiver-training-services
• Medicare.gov: Long Term Care Coverage. States that Medicare and Medicare Supplement Insurance do not pay for long-term custodial care at home or in a nursing home. https://www.medicare.gov/coverage/long-term-care
• National Institute on Aging: Frontotemporal Disorders: Causes, Symptoms, and Diagnosis. Explains that frontotemporal disorders can begin with trouble managing finances while short-term memory is initially unaffected, and that FTD is sometimes misdiagnosed as Alzheimer’s. https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/frontotemporal-disorders/what-are-frontotemporal-disorders-causes-symptoms-and-treatment
• Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration: Planning for Legal, Financial, and Health Insurance Issues. States that powers of attorney are only enforceable if signed by someone deemed legally competent at the time. https://www.theaftd.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Planning-for-Legal-Financial-and-Health-Insurance-Issues-Life-After-an-FTD-Diagnosis.pdf
• Administration for Community Living: Eldercare Locator. The federal public service, at 1-800-677-1116, that connects older adults and their families to local services, including Area Agencies on Aging. https://eldercare.acl.gov/
• National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys. Describes NAELA members’ work in public benefits, probate and estate planning, guardianship and conservatorship, and health and long-term care planning. https://www.naela.org/MONAELA/MONAELA/About_MONAELA.aspx

Related reading

• Told It’s Alzheimer’s but Nothing Matches? Your First 30 Days
• Can a Parent With Dementia Still Sign Legal Documents?
• The Financial Planning Checklist for a New Frontotemporal Dementia Diagnosis
• What Is a Caregiver Pre-Mortem and Why Should I Do One Now?
• How reactive caregiving can cost families up to $750K, and what proactive planning saves
• Dementia Care Navigation
• The Proactive Caregiver Method

About this article. Jessica Cannon is a CPA with 28 years of financial experience and a Certified Dementia Practitioner. She provides financial coaching, not legal or medical services. This article is general information about how these systems work, not advice about your situation, and it is not a substitute for the advice of an attorney. It is not medical advice, and it is not individualized tax or financial advice.

For the legal instruments themselves, including wills, powers of attorney and guardianship, you will need a licensed attorney in your own state. Medicaid and long-term care rules also differ by state and change over time, so any Texas detail here is an example rather than a rule that will apply to you.