Paula Span’s post today on the blog The New Old Age does a good job explaining the challenges of establishing whether someone with dementia had the capacity to sign or change a will.
The occasion for the post is, of course, the ongoing criminal trial of Brooke Astor’s son, Anthony D. Marshal, and lawyer, Francis X. Morrissey Jr., who are accused of diverting money from Astor’s estate. One of the issues at trial is whether Astor, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, had the mental and legal capacity to make changes to her will.
As Paula Span writes:
Alzheimer’s sufferers may experience days of comparative lucidity alternating with days of bewilderment. Cognitive ability “may even vary throughout the day,” said Dr. Ronald C. Petersen, a neurologist at the Mayo Clinic who chairs the medical and scientific advisory board of the Alzheimer’s Association. “A person might be relatively sharp in the morning and by evening be quite confused.”
Caregivers are familiar with the late-day agitation called “sundowning.” Medications, disrupted sleep, social stimulation and even a minor cold can affect these diurnal cycles. Though a variety of doctors are expected to testify during the two-month trial, they may shed little light on whether Mrs. Astor had, in legalspeak, “testamentary capacity” on a particular January afternoon in 2004, when she altered her will.
Read the full article here. At the end is a short video of Brooke Astor speaking at her 100th birthday party. The video was recently shown in court.
SE
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