June, what save us with my mother in law is that we had hired a
financial planner to help us get a handle on her "stuff".

My husband and I had hired an independent planner 16 years ago to help
us get our finances in shape after the death of my father. I'd
inherited some money, we were new parents, in our first house etc. so
we needed someone to look at the big picture for us and get us
organized, including our own retirement, tax, estate planning etc. She
was great, since she was independent, and thus not trying to push any
particular approach on us or sell us anything.

This is her
http://www.hitbyaniceberg.ca/About%20The%20Authors.htm
(she fell on her front steps a few years back and broke her neck, but
luckily recovered most of the way, and wrote a book on planning for
unexpected disability).

She's a real gem, so when my mother in law started to fail, we were
able to convince her to let Janet help her. The first thing Janet did
was wade right in and find out where all the investments were, all the
bank accounts, the insurance, you name it, and come up with a total
net worth assessment. My mother in law was also the executor of a
trust, which was totalled balled up by the time Janet came on the
scene, due to my MIL's AD. Although my MIL was confused at the time,
she was still well enough to be able to help explain a few things. It
helped that Janet wasn't a family member, so Dolli would tell her
things she might have been reluctant to discuss with her son. People
are private about their money!

Janet looked at how everything was set up and started issuing orders
to my husband that would A) better protect my MIL's capital and
produce maximal income for her and B) make it all easier to keep track
of and manage. Like many elderly people, my mother in law had all
kinds of money sitting in unproductive places, tons of different
accounts, etc. etc. She even had whacks of cash just sitting in
savings accounts. So, Janet had my husband running around with
specific instructions -  i.e. close this account, consolidate these
ones,  move this money from this to that, ditch these risky
investments in favour of this safer investment.

It made the world of difference to us to know exactly where everything
was, what it was etc. It also was a huge relief to know the entire
financial picture so we had confidence there was enough money to look
after anything Dolli might need.

My father ran his own business, so you'd think HIS finances would have
been in order, but man, oh, man. I was the executor of his estate, and
we were months figuring out what he had, and where it was (never mind
the stack of uncashed cheques I found in his closet in a shoebox).

Mary