The other day something unusual happened. I received a call from an 88 year old woman who needed my advice about her daughter in law’s pushy (for lack of a better word) behavior.

Fearing that she would be institutionalized against her will, she wanted to know what her rights were. When I got to the woman’s house, she and her middle aged care-giver, greeted me with a warm smile and a welcoming gesture.

As she spoke of her daughter barging in, her eyes began to tear. The daughter, the wife of a son who passed away in his twenties, had begun a campaign to rid the home of the caretaker and the cat that the caretaker brought in and to place my client into some form of assisted living.

The daughter had even gone to a doctor’s visit where she made not so subtle illusions to the house being in a state of filth and disarray and run over by pets.

Concerned, the doctor had a social worker come to the home. The social worker reported that the house and living conditions were in perfect order.

Later that day, the grandson barged into the home and removed the cat that my client had come to love, insisting that my client had allergies and that she simply forgot about them.

My client was afraid that she would be snatched and institutionalized when she went to put her garbage out. Was this a paranoid delusion? Was the care giver up to no good?

Or, was this a case of elder abuse?

My findings were that my client’s mental capacity was very much in tact. Furthermore, she was very happy with her caretaker and wanted a pet. I spoke with my client’s doctor who agreed.

To this day, I do not know what her daughter in law’s motive was. Although she was in the will, placement of my client into an institutionalized setting would deplete her inheritance. My suggestion was two fold.

First, I could have the family participate in a family mediation to have everybody’s concerns aired and my client could assert her right to independence and autonomy, she could make her 80 year old sister a proxy under a durable power of attorney for health care or she could voluntarily submit to a conservatorship over herself. Short of that, she could get a restraining order.

That seemed a bit extreme. When I followed up with her she told me that she suggested to her daughter in law a cooling off time. They will meet in a couple of weeks to smooth things over with or without my mediation.

Empowered by two professionals assessment that she is not incompetent, I suspect that my client will now be in a position to assert her boundaries that she created over 88 years on this planet.