FOR RELEASE: Monday, November 2, 2026
Occasion: National Family Caregivers Month runs through November 2026
Media contact: Jessica Cannon, 512-766-7231, jessica@cannonlightmedia.com

For National Family Caregivers Month, Austin CPA and Certified Dementia Practitioner Jessica Cannon says the sibling conflicts that derail a parent's care are rarely about money itself. They start with a power of attorney one sibling holds and the others have never seen, and they surface at the holidays.

AUSTIN, Texas, Nov. 2, 2026 — As National Family Caregivers Month opens, Austin CPA and Certified Dementia Practitioner Jessica Cannon is telling families that the argument they are dreading this Thanksgiving is usually a paperwork problem wearing a family costume.

Cannon, founder of The Proactive Caregiver, works with families managing the financial and legal side of a dementia diagnosis. She says the most common flashpoint she sees is not spending. It is access.

"One sibling ends up holding power of attorney, usually because they lived closest or because nobody else wanted the job," Cannon said. "Then the others find out they cannot see the bank statements, or they think they cannot, and within a month everyone has decided somebody is hiding something. Most of the time nobody is. But by then the trust is gone, and the parent is the one who pays for it."

The pattern is visible in what families search for. Questions about whether a sibling with power of attorney can restrict access to a parent are among the most-read material on Cannon's site, ahead of topics like memory care costs and Medicaid eligibility.

Cannon says the holidays concentrate the problem because they are often the first time siblings who live apart are together and looking at the same parent at the same time.

"Somebody flies in and sees what the day-to-day actually looks like, and it is worse than the phone calls suggested," she said. "That is a good thing to find out. It is a terrible thing to find out across a dinner table with no plan for what happens next."

She recommends families use the visit deliberately rather than avoid the subject. Her guidance is to agree on three things before anyone goes home: who holds which document, how the person holding them will share information on a regular schedule, and what the family does if the parent's needs change suddenly.

The financial stakes sit underneath the family ones. Family caregivers give up an estimated $522 billion a year in wages and earnings nationally, roughly $35,000 each, and that cost lands hardest on whichever sibling absorbed the day-to-day work.

"The sibling doing the caregiving is usually also the one taking the financial hit, and that is rarely acknowledged out loud," Cannon said. "Naming it early takes a lot of heat out of the conversation later."

Cannon is a CPA with 28 years of financial experience and a Certified Dementia Practitioner. She has reached 2,780+ caregivers through speaking and training. She is not an attorney, a physician, or an investment adviser, and she directs families to an elder law attorney for the legal instruments themselves.

About The Proactive Caregiver

The Proactive Caregiver helps families handle the financial and legal mechanics of caring for a parent with dementia, through coaching, courses and speaking. Founded by Jessica Cannon, CPA and Certified Dementia Practitioner, based in Austin, Texas and working with families nationwide.

Media contact: Jessica Cannon, 512-766-7231, jessica@cannonlightmedia.com