The stigma of “incapacity” is often thrust upon elderly individuals because they are easy prey. Many times the individual is visited during a hospitalization when they are dealing with life and death issues. They are just trying to find the strength to cope with their illnesses when they are seen by an examining committee. These are complete strangers. Why would anyone be comfortable opening up to a complete stranger? Their silence is then portrayed negatively.

One’s own physician is not even allowed to participate in this process. No one knows a person better than his own physician of record. If the courts were really after the truth, they would be insisting that primary care physicians, along with caregivers who have been involved with the individual in question for at least six months, be required to participate in the evaluation of capacity. Tragically, not only is this not done but the physician of record is often dismissed and replaced without any say so by the party involved.

Another important matter in the issue of capacity is that often attorneys for the guardians then follow through with court proceedings to have all advance directives and any other documents the elderly individual may have arranged and signed in the past, null and void. That means, even if something was signed 10 years prior, it is considered that the individual was incapacitated then. No proof is ever required. Shouldn’t a person only be declared incapacitated from the date of judgment?

What is happening is that guardians have found a way to systematically take away one’s civil rights, not to mention, a person’s dignity. It is an abuse of the legal system which ultimately results in LEGAL IDENTITY THEFT.