Aging parents is something that many of us have to deal with.

Some aging parents can increasingly use our time, our mental capacity and sometimes financial resources.

I know several people who are trying their best and they are trying to manage their parent's investment portfolios at the same time as take on larger role with the parent's medical care and day to day lives.

This is time consuming and comes with a number of emotional tolls where you may not feel like you're doing your best.

I was asked to manage the parent's portfolio to help alleviate some of this stress and act as an investment manager and consultant to their assets, income, estate and planning.

One of the things that comes with dealing with seniors is the requirement to constantly assess their cognitive abilities. I need to be able to determine when they are acting in full capacity and when they may have a cognitive impairment.

There are various degrees of the impairment. It's not always binary in outcome.

Questions that probe this will come up and I'm testing to see what their understanding and comprehension is.

Do they remember details? Do they understand concepts that I talk about? Can they repeat them back to me? Do they ask the same questions multiple times?

There are many more questions that I will ask and cues that I will look for.

Questions come about - how is your estate setup? Who are the beneficiaries? Who are they and what are their roles in your life?

The reason that I started to manage the portfolio was to free up the capacity of the child who is looking after their parent.

What area in your life do you find spending a lot of time and mental capacity and can it be better spent if you brought in an outside consultant?

How can this outside person be used to make everyone's lives better?

What is the one thing that you would need to do to start this process?

Don't settle on the first person and interview multiple people to find the right fit.