By CHRIS DETTRO, STAFF WRITER
A continuing increase in reports of elder abuse may make people think maybe those “golden years” aren’t really all that precious.
But Sangamon County is using a team approach — apparently successfully — to try to prevent abuse or at least punish offenders.
“More than half the reports involve financial exploitation,” said Lois Moorman, program administrator in the Illinois Department on Aging. “But most cases involve more than one form of abuse.
“Our reports continue to increase,” Moorman said. “Right now we’ve responded to 12 percent more reports than at this point (about halfway) in fiscal 2007.”
She estimates only about one of every 10 instances of abuse is being reported.
Three years ago, the department began a public awareness campaign, and Moorman thinks much of the increase in reports can be attributed to that.
“The key to prevention is community awareness,” she said.
Senior Services of Central Illinois organizes a monthly “multidisciplinary team” meeting, during which neglect investigators, law enforcement authorities, prosecutors, attorneys, mental health professionals, bankers, clergy members and nurses discuss tough cases.
“We basically present our toughest case — one we’re kind of stumped on and not making any progress with, that we’re not seeing any solutions to,” said Season Young, director of the case coordination unit at Senior Services of Central Illinois.
The group efforts can come up with innovative ideas. Police may think to search secretary of state records to get the legal name of an abuser known to neighbors only by a nickname. A banker could know of financial documents that could be used for a new approach. A lawyer could have ideas on how to get a guardian appointed and a prosecutor might see the need to submit a case to a grand jury.
“If we do it right, it’s a very well-rounded group,” Young said.
Sangamon County assistant state’s attorney Jay Magnuson started attending team meetings after a 2005 case in which Bonnie Howard, operator of an unlicensed senior-care facility in Chatham, was sentenced to three years in prison for involuntary manslaughter in the death of an 88-year-old resident in 2001.
Magnuson says the multidisciplinary approach is extremely helpful.
“We’ve always come up with a solution,” Magnuson said.
When he was a Cook County assistant state’s attorney in the late 1980s, Magnuson founded the elder abuse unit there.
“We had a unit that handled abuse in nursing homes, but it became apparent that abuse was much broader than just nursing homes,” he said. “We had a full-time investigator assigned to it.”
One of his Cook County cases was from Schiller Park, where the son “was keeping Mom and Dad in the basement and feeding them dog food,” Magnuson said.
“They both had Alzheimer’s and pensions,” he said. “She slept on a cement floor next to a furnace, and the rodents wouldn’t run when someone came into the room because they weren’t afraid of people.”
The son ended up being sentenced to prison, Magnuson said.
His involvement with elder abuse cases in Sangamon County began in 2005, with a case involving abuse of an elderly person in a licensed care facility. That case ended in a guilty plea and a probation sentence for the offender.
The office has prosecuted a dozen or so cases since then.
Sangamon County’s approach to the elder abuse problem has been “very positive,” Moorman said. “They’re functioning in a way we hope could be replicated in other parts of the state.”
The Office of Elder Rights responds to reports of abuse or neglect of people 60 or older who do not live in nursing homes or similar facilities. The Illinois Department of Public Health has jurisdiction for nursing homes.
The Department on Aging contracts with Senior Services of Sangamon County to take reports of abuse, Moorman said. Forty-five community agencies throughout the state also take reports.
When a report comes in, the agency gets as much information from the reporter as possible. Some professionals are required by law to report suspected abuse.
Senior Services then conducts a face-to-face interview with the alleged victim and has 30 days to determine if abuse occurred. The victim has to consent to the services.
“There can be criminal charges filed,” Moorman said, but in other cases, the problem may be that the victim’s caregiver simply can’t do everything the elderly person needs.
“Neglect isn’t always a deliberate, willful thing, although financial exploitation and sexual abuse are different stories,” she said.
Magnuson says he also sees more indications that the elderly are being exploited financially.
“There is definitely more of it being reported,” he said.
The recent case of Sandra Gayle, in which a caregiver is accused of bilking a retired doctor out of more than $800,000, was reported directly to the state’s attorney’s office and then to police.
“Some (state’s attorney’s) offices are reluctant to take on elder abuse cases,” Magnuson said. “But they definitely can have a deterrent effect. And the more information that gets out there, the more alert people are to the schemes.
“Information is the key to everything,” he said.
Moorman said the number of reports “can’t do anything but increase” as the Baby Boomer population ages. “We’d like to see the whole thing plateau, but I don’t think we’re going to be there for a while.”
“Isolation makes one more vulnerable to abuse,” she said. “That’s what makes them targets. We as a community must respond to that to make sure they remain active.”
Report it
If you know about or even merely suspect elder abuse, call Senior Services of Central Illinois at 528-4035. The center is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. If it’s after hours or you don’t want to report to them directly, call the statewide elder abuse hotline at (866) 800-1409 It is available 24 hours a day.
SOURCE: sj-r.com news
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