Elder abuse ­— Senior citizens are victims, too

 July 21, 2015 

The Sun Current -

Nearly 100 elderly Minnesotans per day are suffering from neglect, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, financial abuse and isolation, according to the most recent statistics.

Loren Colman, assistant commissioner of Continuing Care for Older Adults for the state Human Services department, reported that in 2014 there were 35,877 reports of abuse to the elderly: 46.9 percent were caregiver neglect, 23 percent self-neglect, 17 percent financial exploitation, 10 percent physical and emotional, and 3.2 percent mental.

Seniors are the fastest growing group in Minnesota, with some predicting that by 2020 they will equal the number of children in K-12 education. According to the last federal census, 13 percent of Minnesotans are 65 and over. That number is predicted to be 20 percent by 2050.

Often elderly abuse is undetected because the aging are reluctant to reveal it, and their close families are hesitant to deal with it. Ironically, immediate family members are the biggest abusers, while they also can be the first to recognize and help elderly family members.

One growing concern is financial abuse. The elderly are increasingly victims of scams, fraud and outright theft, sometimes committed by close family members.

Anoka County Attorney Tony Palumbo tracks elderly abuse cases. He says that two-thirds of cases involve family members, particularly those who have the power of attorney and write checks on the elderly’s accounts. Elderly women are especially victims, Palumbo says.

Carmen Castaneda, program manager of adult services for Hennepin County, estimates 90 percent of elderly abuse complaints involve the family. Last year there were 700 new allegations of financial exploitation reported in the county. Palumbo noted that banks now have the authority to monitor suspicious transactions involving the elderly.

The Minnesota Department of Health, through its Department of Adult Protection, is the lead agency for investigating elderly abuse claims. Treatment is provided through counties.

On July 1, the Minnesota Adult Abuse Reporting Center for reporting the abuse of vulnerable adults – including the elderly – went live at 844-880-1574. The center is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Identity of the reporters is protected, and reporters can ask to receive a notice of the initial outcome of the report.

Castaneda says she now has the staff to check on reported allegations within a half hour. She praised Hennepin County management and the Hennepin County Board of Commissioners for increasing funding for more staff.

According to the Department of Human Services, all 87 counties have adult protection units responsible for assessing and investigating reports of suspected maltreatment and offering protective services to vulnerable adults. State agencies investigate reports involving nursing facilities or group homes.

Abridged
SOURCE:  The Sun Current

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Leaders Begin Elder Abuse Examination

July 20, 2015

South Dakota leaders are analyzing elder abuse. The Chief Justice of South Dakota’s Supreme Court David Gilbertson says the often hidden crimes of elder abuse are becoming bigger problems as more people age. All three branches of government are part of a task force trying to understand who is taking advantage of the state’s aging people, how they’re doing it, and what can be done to prevent and punish elder abuse.

Elder abuse takes many forms, but a discussion about money pierces Steve Mielke.

“I mean, just looking through the slides and what they’re discussing, I could just feel in the pit of my stomach of this is exactly, they’re talking about my dad,” Mielke says.

This year Mielke lost his father after a stroke, but it’s the time leading up to his death that brings Mielke to a conference about elder abuse.

“He had been with an individual for about two years, and we’d seen a steady decline in his spending time with the family and then how his funding and his financial situation had changed drastically – to where he had been selling some land and then how that money had all gone away and just basically had totally changed,” Mielke says.

This is not a unique story.

National experts say physical, emotional, and financial abuse of the elderly is under-reported and under-prosecuted.

Abridged
SOURCE:   SDPB RADIO
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Elderly Need Advocates Against Scammers

July 19, 2015

Like blood-sucking mosquitoes and ticks, scam artists are a sure sign of summer. Although they target the elderly and other vulnerable citizens year ‘round, warmer weather seems to be their peak season.

They have been surfacing locally for the last month. One of their most recent capers occurred last Tuesday in Upper Darby where a 75-year-old woman lost $3,000 in a classic “pigeon drop” scheme in which the scammers left her with a bag full of cut-up newspapers instead of the promised cash for making a “donation.”

A similar scam was perpetrated upon a senior citizen in Glenolden on July 2 and on a 54-year-old woman in Caln Township, Chester County, on June 23. Police in all three municipalities are working together to determine if the same flim-flammers were at work.

In Upper Darby, the victim, was approached at a Glendale Road shopping center by a man who appeared to be in his early 50s, had a dark complexion and was wearing a black suit, black hat and sunglasses and carried a brown shoulder bag. He said his brother had just died in Africa and he was looking for a “credible Christian person” to help him make a church donation in his brother’s memory. Then he showed her a brown bag he said was filled with money which he would share with her if she gave him $3,000.

After the woman withdrew $3,000 from her bank, she was approached by a second man who appeared to be in his early 40s, had a brown complexion and was wearing a brown plaid shirt and a brown and black hat. He told her she was a good Christian, she put her money in his brown bag and he handed her another brown bag, instructing her not to open it until she got home.

In the Glenolden caper, the scammers, described as two black males with African accents approached their target in a supermarket parking lot. One told her he needed donations to return to Africa and if she gave them $700 they would give her $40,000 in return. They even took her to lunch at fast food restaurant before she went to her bank and withdrew $700 and gave it to them. They gave her a bandanna supposedly full of money, prayed over it and told her not to open it until she got home. A bandanna was also used to convey fake money to the Caln Township woman who withdrew a lot of cash from her bank and gave it to the scammers after watching the men pretend to withdraw money from another bank.

Abridged
SOURCE:  The Daily Times, Editorials

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Cobb Elder Abuse Task Force Offers Safety Tips, Crisis numbers

The Cobb Elder Abuse Task Force, chaired by Cobb County District Attorney Vic Reynolds with the help of many volunteers, is helping to bring awareness of elder abuse to the public.

For every one case of elder abuse that comes to the attention of a responsible entity, another 23 cases never come to light, according to the New York State Elder Abuse Prevalence Study.

Beginning in 2012, Baby Boomers began turning age 65 at a rate of one every ten seconds or 10,000 per day.

Georgia has the 11th fastest-growing population of people age 60 plus.

By 2030, one in five will be over the age of 60.

Elder abuse is any knowing, intentional or negligent act by a caregiver or any other person that causes harm or a serious risk of harm to a vulnerable adult, taking place in many forms or a combination of those listed below:

Physical Abuse/Domestic Violence: the nonaccidental use of force that results in bodily injury, pain or impairment such as being slapped, burned, cut, bruised or improperly physically restrained.
Deprivation of Essential Services: the willful deprivation of social, medical, psychiatric or legal services such as the provision of medical or psychiatric care, assistance in personal hygiene, deprivation of food, clothing or adequately heated and ventilated shelter or protections from health and safety hazards in general.
Sexual Abuse: nonconsensual sexual contact of any kind such as forcing sexual contact or forcing sex with a third party.
Emotional Abuse: willful infliction of mental or emotional anguish by threat, humiliation, intimidation or other abusive conduct such as frightening or isolating an adult.
Financial Exploitation: illegal or improper use of an adult's funds, property or resources by another individual such as fraud, false pretenses, embezzlement, conspiracy, forgery, falsifying records, coerced property transfers or denial of access to assets.
Neglect: the willful deprivation of health care, shelter or necessary sustenance to the extent that an older person's health or well-being is jeopardized - as defined by Georgia law.
Also, it is a crime to threaten, intimidate or attempt to intimidate any person cooperating with an elder abuse investigation, including the potential victim.
Elder abuse generally involves an ongoing relationship with an expectation of trust with power and control dynamics often present.

Several indicators of possible elder abuse are:

Victim Indicators

• Shows unexplained or sudden changes in behavior
• Is afraid to speak in the presence of the offender
• Is isolated
• Signs of being restrained
• Infections, pain or bleeding in genital areas
• Under- or over-medicated
• Left in feces and/or urine
• Important possessions, documents or credit cards are missing

Suspect Indicators

• Provides conflicting explanations about the older adult's injuries
• Isolates the older adult
• Controls and dominates the older adult
• Portrays self as the victim or the only caring person in the older adult's life
• May be charming and helpful toward professionals

Environmental Indicators

• Strong odors of urine and/or feces
• Lack of food
• Locks on outside of doors to keep older individual in a room
• Damage to home caused by abusive behavior

Abridged
SOURCE:    The AJC News

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White House Conference on Aging Abuses Elders by Ignoring Injustice

Post Conference Disappointment and Anger

July 19, 2015

It can be concluded from other post-conference e-mail reports that Tom Fields and others did their best before the July 13th WHCOA, and during the conference itself, to address the current rampant abuse by legal professional guardians.  Mr. Fields, wishing he could have applauded the conference for doing so, instead encountered a conference that never touched upon the topic, the same having occurred in nearly every other such forum conducted by the administration's government. They include the Elder Justice Coordinating Council that was created by the Elder Justice Act (and mentioned during the conference); the Administration on Aging (and its parent, Health and Human Services); and the U.S. Senate’s Special Committee on Aging.

As Mr. Fields wrote in one of his e-mails:

"Not only did the WHCOA refuse to address such abuse, but it impeded efforts by myself and others from doing so.  How?  First by demanding that I stop circulating a handout at the regional forum which I attended, and second by refusing to share tweets which I and others sent during the conference."

In that the conference could and should have tried to help advocates like Tom Fields network with other advocates, it didn’t accomplish this. Instead, it pushed its own agenda, one which deliberately ignored the issue identified by the tweet noted above, further exemplified by this 3-minute ABC News video presented on-line, which the conference refused to play and discuss.

Abridged

SOURCE:   The Heartlander Magazine

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District Attorney, Police Battle Elder Abuse (USA)

Editorial: District attorney, police battle elder abuse

(Savannah Morning News)

A little more than a week ago, police in Garden City arrested a man and a woman — they’re engaged to be married — on charges they conned their way into an elderly couple’s home and stole cash, electronics and jewelry, including a wedding ring.

Police say the younger couple, who face several felony charges, knocked on the older couple’s door, offered unsolicited work on their pool and talked the 74-year-old woman and 78-year-old man into inviting them into their home.

The younger couple stayed for at least an hour and even shared a beer with their hosts, according to Garden City Police Sgt. Lindsey Talley. During that time, Talley said, the visitors took various items out to their car.

Stolen items included an ID, a debit card, cash, a laptop and jewelry described as sentimental. Before leaving, the couple told the victims they’d be in touch later in the week about fixing their pool. Needless to say, they never reappeared.

Talley discovered the younger woman had used the stolen debit card online, was able to trace it and also found a wedding ring stolen from the elderly couple had been sold to a gold buyer.

Police are still trying to track down pieces of the stolen property, but they’ve been able to return some of it to the victims.

The courts will decide whether the younger couple is found guilty. What may be more important in the long run is the fact a police agency is making protection of the elderly a priority.

WHO TO CALL

If you suspect elder abuse or need assistance, you may contact:

• Police: 911

• Adult Protective Services: 1-888-774-0152

• Long Term Care Ombudsman: 912-367-4866

• Georgia Legal Services Program: 912-651-2180

• Chatham County Victim-Witness Assistance Program: 912-652-7329

• Senior Citizens Inc: 912-236-0363

• Rape Crisis Center: 912-233-7279

Source: Kristin Fulford, District attorney office

Abridged

SOURCE:  The Savannah Morning News

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Fighting elder abuse in Nunavut will take effort, experts argue (Canada)

Fighting elder abuse in Nunavut will take effort, experts argue

Fighting elder abuse needs the same level of government commitment as suicide prevention and far more attention from everyone in Nunavut, says Arviat's Angie Curley. 

"This problem, elder abuse, is kept private," said Curley. "It's not known by everyone. It's a family problem."

Curley says there is an elder in her community who has been dealing with abuse regularly for years. But so far, no one has been able to make it stop.

"It's frustrating," said Curley. "From my experience, elders don't speak publicly about what they went through. They don't like to have what they went through, the abuse, to be public."

Several years ago, Curley says she contacted the elders support hotline, which provides services for unilingual Inuktitut-speakers, but says no one ever followed up.

"There has to be a better system in place to protect the elders."

Curley says the government can make changes happen fast – as it did with the equally important issue of suicide prevention.

Not all abuse is reported 

Sgt. Yvonne Niego says investigating cases of abuse can be challenging. 

In 2014, Niego says the oldest victim reported to police was an 87-year-old, who was assaulted. Often, elders who are emotionally or physically abused are hesitant to seek help, because the perpetrators are family members.

"But along with that there was alcohol involved and an extended family member was perpetrating."

Abridged

SOURCE:    CBC NEWS (NORTH)

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‘Granny scams’ in US and ‘Ore Ore scams’ in Japan

In the United States, older Americans lose millions of dollars to scam artists pretending to be the victim’s grandchildren, son or daughter who need money for bail, fine or hospital bills, etc. The “granny scam” accounts for a growing part of the estimated $2.9 billion seniors lose in financial scams each year.

In Japan, the population is rapidly aging and demographic trends suggest roughly 40 percent of Japanese will be 65 years old or over by 2040. Elderly are often targeted by swindlers. The most notorious and infamous of these scams are the so-called “ore ore” (It’s me, it’s me) telephone scam, which uses the phone to trick people into parting with cash, robs many elderly people who are persuaded that their loved ones have phoned them to ask for emergency money.

Losses from so-called special fraud cases totaled 55.9 billion yen (US$474 million) in 2014, up by 7 million yen ($59 million) from a year earlier, making consecutive annual record, according to Japan’s National Police Agency. There are 13,371 cases of special fraud in 2014 and about 80 per cent of the victims are elderly people aged over 65. The losses through the “Ore ore” scam showed the largest amount at 17.5 billion yen.

In “Ore ore” scams, callers pose as relatives, police officers or other people their targets might trust. In most of the cases, the fraudsters approached the victims by pretending to be sons or grandsons in an emergency and convince their victims to send money, generally via ATM. When transaction limits at ATMs have come severe, then perpetrators have chosen the use of delivery services such as courier services and Letter pack flat-rate cardboard mailers or person-to-person delivery.

SOURCE:    Tempo News

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Abuse of Elderly Under-reported by victims - (Australia)

Royal Commission into Family Violence: Abuse of elderly under-reported by victims due to 'embarrassment, shame'

Some elderly parents who are abused by their adult children do not report it to police because they want to protect them and often feel ashamed, Victoria's Royal Commission into Family Violence has been told.

(This is the same around the world)

Source:   The ABC
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Railing Against Injustice, One Case At A Time

Railing against injustice, one case at a time

Ordinary citizens who rail against injustices they see in the U.S. guardianship system can come across as a little unhinged.

They send emails bristling with capital letters and exclamation points. They compose blogs that read like vendettas against specific attorneys. They obsess over small details, but omit from their narratives the major complications that might explain why things went against them in court.

They call journalists — who often abandon efforts to check out their stories because of the time involved. These cases are convoluted, and much vital information is sealed from the public eye.

Elder guardianship Part 1: A well-oiled machine

They form their own, usually underfunded, organizations: National Association to STOP Guardian Abuse. Boomers Against Elder Abuse. Temple Gate: Challenging the Guardianship Industry. Attorneys and other professionals in the system tend to roll their eyes when they hear these names.

Sam Sugar, an Aventura physician who founded Americans Against Abusive Probate Guardianship, says he knows why people trying to tell their stories are so often seen as suspect.

“They have been so maimed and damaged by this David-and-Goliath battle,” he says. “It’s a form of post-traumatic stress disorder.”

Elder law reform advocates on a national level take many of the critics’ points seriously. But because guardianship procedures vary from state to state, and county to county, they must struggle to make themselves heard on a case-by-case basis.

Abridged
SOURCE:     The HeraldTribune Extra
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