State hotline available for reports of injury, neglect and exploitation
by Erin Wisdom
February 24, 2009
Agnes, 85 years old, lost her husband last year.
Due to her arthritis and congestive heart failure, Agnes moved in with her 55-year-old daughter, Emily. The situation is difficult for all of them.
Sometimes Emily feels as if she’s at the end of her rope — caring for her mother, worrying about her college-age son and about her husband, who is about to be forced into early retirement. Emily has caught herself calling her mother names and accusing her mother of ruining her life. Recently, she lost her temper and slapped her mother. In addition to feeling frightened and isolated, Agnes feels trapped and worthless.
This scenario, given by the American Psychological Association, illustrates the phenomenon of elder abuse, which an estimated 2.1 million Americans experience in some form each year.
“It’s sad, because it’s usually someone close to them” who is being abusive, says Karen Worthington, the area supervisor for the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services’ division of senior and disability services. “That’s hard, because they trust those people.”
She adds that the four social service workers in her division each receive about eight to 10 abuse reports to look into each month in Buchanan County. Many times, the cases called into the Department of Health and Senior Services’ elder abuse hotline — (800) 392-0210 — are ones of self-neglect, reported perhaps by a neighbor who notices the unkempt appearance or confusion that could indicate a person is no longer capable of caring for herself.
Although this kind of neglect seems to be more common here than physical or emotional abuse, Ms. Worthington says, a kind of abuse she’s seen increase over the past year is financial exploitation. In response, the Department of Health and Senior Services has created a program, Missourians Stopping Adult Financial Exploitation (MOSAFE), to alert
“If someone you know has never withdrawn a lot of money, but all of a sudden she’s coming in with someone new and withdrawing a lot, that might be a red flag,” Ms. Worthington says.
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