Can a dementia patient revoke a POA without a valid reason that can be proven?

I am from AZ. My Dad had signed both types of POA...durable and medical....due to his dementia. In order to keep them in effect when he wanted to cancel them, the lawyer required written reports from two MDs who were seeing him, stating that he was not competent to handle his own financial affairs or health care decisions anymore. When the lawyer presented this to him, my Dad was going to fire the lawyer and get another one. Lawyer said to simply wait and see what he did, because either he would forget or he would make an app't and a new attorney would assess in about 30 minutes that he was not OK, and would refuse to take the case and revoke the POAs. My Dad forgot. The elder care attorney said, if Dad kept insisting and did not drop it, we would have to spend a few thousand for a guardianship hearing, but that the letters from MDs would make it a clear cut decision for a judge, rather than a long drawn out procedure. The problem with guardianship is that Dad would have been required to appear and to have his own attorney represent him and then you get into one side trying to prove he was OK while the other side is trying to prove he is not....and it becomes family against the individual, which often destroys relationships.....so it's best to go into it with the doctors' letters already done because this will be strong evidence for the judge, and keep it from being 'family' says he's not OK. Guardianship cannot be reversed, but it's very expensive and takes a lot of control away from family handling things like with a POA.

Yes Dave any competent person can but what about the posters question about a dementia patient. I would think that would be different. This is a very good question, would like to see legal findings in such a case. Thank you AT for raising this question. I hope we get some solid answers.

I went through that with my dad whose dementia turned vindictive and paranoiac. I asked a lawyer what my options were if he revoked the POA, and was it possible even in a demented state. He said yes, that the law allows for a "moment of lucidity" in which he could still act to revoke it or any other legal documents.

My dad was in and out of "lucidity" and with doctors, lawyers, other neighbors He would tell them I was his daughter, but with me he would either pretend he didn't recognize me or really didn't recognize me. My feeling was he was deliberately trying to hurt me, because I wouldn't do what he wanted (quit my job and move in to take care of him, entertain him etc full time).

The lawyer told me my only option was to hope he didn't contact the lawyer who drew up the POA or to take action by getting a guardianship. He said in a hearing, a lawyer would represent my father's wishes, and even if a guardianship was granted, that my father would have a say in who his guardian would be. He was so spiteful and angry I think he would have insisted on someone other than me, if for no other reason than I was trying to say he was out of his mind ( which was a lifelong fear, and in fact came to pass).

That was in NY where he lived. I managed to get him back to where I live in Louisiana, and checked on getting a guardianship here and got the same answer. Louisiana is under Napoleonic Code, so if it is the same in NY & LA my guess is that it is equivalently difficult in all states to declare someone incompetent. And it should be very difficult to declare someone incompetent or we end up in a nightmare society where anyone can be deemed incompetent by greedy or selfish family.

It makes it agonizing for honest people who are trying to do the right thing for parents or relatives who are unable to cope gracefully with the indignities of old age.

My heart goes out to you. I have been there and agonized through making decisions where there was simply no good solution. I had to choose the least worst option, and it takes a heavy emotional, mental and physical toll.

There is no help for caretakers. There is no economic help unless you live with them and can get head of household status. There is no legal help, all of the laws are for the protection of the elderly person, none for the protection of the family caretaker from an abusive elder. There is no emotional help--what can a counselor tell you to help on a daily basis--get away? Take care of yourself? How do you do that? You still have to go back to the demented one and cope with the verbal, abuse, threats, accusations, paranoia, yelling, demands for constant attention, complaints, and lack of sleep. The dread becomes overwhelming and the only relief is knowing it can't last forever. But that is of small comfort when you are in the middle of it.

The advice I got from this site helped me feel less alone, so I hope it is of comfort to you too..

An elder law attorney could answer this for your particular state. If someone is competent then they can legally enter into contracts. If someone is not then they cannot. This determination needs to be made, however, and it can be questionable for a period of time. It takes more than just family members saying that a person is not competent.

{Q}mentally incompetent due to illness or accident while you have a power of attorney in effect. Will the document remain valid? To safeguard against any problems, you can sign a durable power of attorney.{EQ}

I am not a lawyer {grin}. A regular POA unless I am mistaken requires compliance with the person's directions. If they are incompetent the POA is moot. That Is why a DPOA is needed and substantially different. I'll yield to an elder affairs lawyer. Acting on a POA from a incompetent person could get one in deep yogurt.
Personally I wold only act using a plain ol POA if I had the instruction for the particular use in writing.
Quoting one of my favorite contributors to knowledge network groups
Attorney at law Kevin P. Keane:
"agreements not reduced to writing, are NOT worth the paper they ain't written on."

My Dad was a real 'brain' man. He had a BS in Electrical Engineering, and a Masters in Mathematics and Computer Programming. So in the early 2000's, he noticed he was having problems remembering things and losing things. He had already been seeing a neurologist for vascular headaches, and he asked his doctor about these issues he was noticing about his memory. The neurologist suggested testing, and apparently my Dad agreed, and via the testing, he was given a diagnosis of Mild Cognitive Impairment. The neurologist explained that it could be early dementia symptoms. At some point, down the road, the diagnosis was confirmed by more testing and the neurologist started my Dad on Aricept to help prolong his memory...in other words, no cure, just keep it from progressing so fast. I had no knowledge of all this until we moved out of Tucson in 2010, and my parents started traveling to visit us. I noticed the Aricept prescription, which I knew to be for Alzheimer's Disease. I asked Mom....and typical of her, she knew nothing about his meds.....so I asked him. He relayed the above information. At that time, I started watching him closer, and our RN daughter who still lived in Tucson then, made it a point to come by, visit, assess, invite the parents to their place and involve my Dad teaching math to the home schooled great grandkids, so she could have a 'closer look' at him. She also noticed changes. Dad was very private about his meds, health care etc....very much a man who was 'in charge' of his money, home, needs, himself etc..... New England personality totally. So he wasn't going to admit he needed anything! He had a couple small fender bender accidents and other things happening, whereby, as is typically....it wasn't his fault...it was someone else who didn't do what they should have....so eventually, my daughter and I started offering to take him to app'ts.....because he couldn't remember exactly what any doctor told him...so we said we would just be there to be another person who would help him remember. I taught him to write down things on a paper that he wanted to remember to talk to a doctor about...and then take the paper, cause he was always forgetting what he wanted to discuss...what his symptoms were...no matter who the dr was. So we learned more from the neurologist. In 2011, I got a call one day from Mom saying that the electric was going to be shut off because the bill was two months over due.....Dad said he paid it. I offered to help trouble shoot since I could get on line and he couldn't......and found out he had not.... anyhow....that incident is what led to him being called in by the attorney for a 'legal check up'....after I called the lawyer. The lawyer asked a few questions, and then suggested to my Dad that perhaps with missing bills, along with the other stuff, it was time to have me take over the bills. That is how it all happened. He progressed quickly after that, and had to be placed in Memory Care in January of 2013. He died this past August, after a fall that caused a fracture in his hip socket.

I believe someone must be in their right mind to revoke POA or DPOA.

ThereIsNoTry ....Yes I had (on Dad..) and have on Mom both the Durable POA and the Medical POA. I am also the trustee of two trusts....my Mom's living trust and a Charitable Remainder Trust that will pay out to the Charity in another year. And revoking a POA.....or it becoming null and void.... my understanding from working through the lawyer and with my Dad's attempts to revoke....is that the person that the POA is for...in this case, my parents.... can only revoke it BEFORE they have been declared incompetent. It actually becomes null and void only upon their death. It goes into effect at the moment it is determined they are not able to handle either financial affairs or medical affairs. But even then, at last with dementia, I was instructed that I was to 'take over' only the parts that either parent could not reasonably do on their own. So I was specifically instructed that my parents had the rights to make decisions that were NOT financial or medical, and that they could be included in any of those decisions even, and given choices or ideas to see what they preferred, but then, in the end, I was the decision maker. So Mom, just as an example, had her own credit cards and went shopping and bought things and I paid the bills. I never told her she could not do that. We had an issue over her agreement to purchase a used refrigerator once....where I could then see, that bigger decisions should no longer be allowed because she was no longer able to see or listen to the bigger picture in terms of good use of money. She wanted a second one. It was $325. She agreed to buy without telling me. BUT we paid another $150 to move fridges around and get the new one working right (icemaker issues) and then, subsequently, we had to put another nearly $200 into repairs, because she was hoarding food and over filling the icemaker storage area with food pkgs! SO...after that, I said she should call me before anything that was going to cost over $100 so I could check the totals in the checkbooks! Worked fine. She had no executive level thinking left. I also ordered another neuro psych eval at that time to see if her Alzheimer's was getting worse, and as a result, insisted on caregivers part time in the home, and ordered another video camera, so I could see what she was doing in the half of the home she spent most of her time in. Anyhow...the POA didn't become null and void when they became incompetent....just their ability to change it became null and void. My Mom is the bigger problem, and especially over the decision to leave her home and go to assisted living. She kept insinuating that I had misused their money because she said, " Your father told me that we would have plenty of money to last us for the rest of our lives, living in our house.....so where did it all go???" Lawyer has to try to explain that Dad had a great plan, and saved a lot of money, but his 'the rest of our lives' didn't count on living to 93 and 90 and getting dementia and alzheimers and having to live in a facility that cost us $75,000 for the first year until enough was spent down for Dad to qualify for Medicaid. On first discussions, Mom understood, but as she was getting worse, we couldn't even have a simple explanation. All the lawyer could tell her was that he was aware of how the money was being spent by me, and he knew I was doing everything legally but things were expensive and we were going to run out of money....Finally he actually had to give her a deadline to pick an AL place, and then a deadline to move out.....because she was so resistant. She did always have the choice to move in with one of our daughters and her family, and even after choosing AL, she still has that choice left. So decisions were arranged to be Mom's decisions because of her need to feel in control. But the lawyer did say, if Mom absolutely refused, we would have to get the two letters and perhaps even just go to court for guardianship. So far...it's been OK. The only other way the POA can be 'revoked'....is my part of it. I can back out of my responsibility to BE the POA at any time, and ask the lawyer to appoint another. For my Mom, one of our daughters is listed as a secondary, so he would then ask her first to take over. If she refused, he would have to put in a public fiduciary who would act on Mom's behalf, pay the bills, make the medical decisions etc. That, of course, would take all controls or discussions away from family members who know Mom and her likes, dislikes etc, so we would want to avoid that as much as possible.

Rain, the only time I've used my authority was when my father was going to be intubated and wouldn't be able to communicate. He clearly lacked any elements of dementia, but wouldn't be able to make decisions for himself, medical or otherwise.

The hospital asked for whatever authority I had to act, I provided copies of both the Living Will and the DPOA. At the time, there was such a higher level of anxiety on the medical issues that I don't even recall asking them which document they would rely on.

As I recall though, the activating basis of the DPOA was that my father be unable to make decisions for himself, which was going to be the case once the intubation was completed and he was chemically induced into a coma.

I think most of the emphasis is on lack of ability to make cogent decisions because of dementia, but our situation is one in which a DPOA was mandatory because of the advanced state of deconditioning and ancillary factors that necessitated induction into a comatose state.

I think another use for a DPOA would be if someone was in an accident and medically or mentally unable to make any decisions, as to finances or care.

I do think you're right, that used properly, it can bypass the guardianship route, which is a much more expensive and controlled route.

As to the question whether a POA is voided when the maker becomes incompetent, I don't believe that's the case, but is rather ONE of the purposes of creating a DPOA. I think the maker's ability to make decisions would be considered limited, if still existent, but that wouldn't void the DPOA, only the maker's authority to make changes....if all that makes sense. It does get murky, doesn't it?

I've also worked for attorneys who've drafted limited, issue specific DPOAs, such as when my sister bought her house. The owners wanted to move out of state and didn't want to remain instate until the closing. So their attorney drafted a specific, Limited DPOA so a friend could execute closing documents for them.

A belated thank you to all who responded. Joanne's answer addressed the issue about which I was concerned. I have and have had Durable POA (financial and medical rolled into one) for some time but was concerned that a dementia patient could revoke such power in an angry moment since as we all know, with some type of dementia, those angry moments can be frequent and are usually directed at the primary caregiver. I think the lawyer's advice is on point - just wait and they will forget or else an attorney would find them incompetent to make such a decision, which was my point. If they cannot assign a POA with dementia, how can they revoke a POA with dementia? Thank you all.