Elder Abuse: Fact of Life in Maine

By Mary Keefe
Director, Community Relations, Huntington Common
April 18, 2008

Huntington Common, a Sunrise Senior Living Community in Kennebunk, hosted a conference for elder advocates throughout York County April 9.

More than 60 professionals present, representing a diverse cross section of expertise including law enforcement and public safety, health care professionals, long-term care and assisted living administrators, elder advocates, domestic violence victim advocates, caseworkers/managers, care coordinators, prosecutors, public and private attorneys, social workers, financial institutions, volunteers and others.

The focus was elder abuse and exploitation in our state. Attorney General Steven Rowe opened the meeting with compelling statistics. He defined “elders” as people 65 and older, of which there are around 185,000 in Maine, or more than 14 percent of our state’s population.

Ricker Hamilton, regional manager of Adult Protective Services at the Maine Department of Health and Human Services opened his comments with “this is an ugly subject.”

Hamilton added that sadly, in the vast majority of cases, the perpetrator is a family member or caregiver of the victim. Consider that a 1998 study by the National Center on Elder Abuse found that 47 percent of abusers are adult children, 19 percent are spouses, and another 17 percent are grandchildren and other relatives. This means that only about 16 percent of elder abusers are unrelated to their victims.

Abridged
SOURCE: kennepunkPost
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