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Line: | Elderly are often targets of financial exploitation, the most prevalent type of elder abuse |
It could be an offer for mid-grade home repairs. An email that’s a little off. An unscrupulous caregiver, which could include an heir.
Financial exploitation is an increasing danger to elders, and counties aim to stop and prevent that and other kinds of abuse.
There’s no comprehensive measure of elder abuse. National incidence has not been catalogued since 1998. Definitions of abuse and even applicable age — 60 or 65 — vary among the 50 states. But some data from adult protective services agencies does show an increase in elder-abuse reports.
In Orange County, Calif., adult protective services reported 9,057 unduplicated reports taken in 2014, up from 7,238 in 2011. Over that same time, the proportion of financial abuse cases increased to 31 percent of reports, up from 28 percent in 2011.
Part of that is due to a population that is living longer and the greying of the baby boom generation, but part is increasing awareness and reporting. County adult protection and human services departments, which are most often the local agencies charged with combating elder abuse, recognize that vigilance and observation are key.
“Ninety-nine percent of elders do not self-report abuse,” said Ramona Williams, elder-abuse program coordinator in Milwaukee County, Wis. “We hear about it from our ‘eyes and ears’ in the community.”
Montgomery County, Md., for example, recently launched an advertising campaign warning bus riders to look for specific signs of abuse in their friends, family and neighbors.
“People are realizing that protecting against elder abuse is a growing industry,” said Mario Wawrzusin, Montgomery County’s administrator for adult protective services, assessment and case management services. “Child welfare got a lot of press in the ’60s and ’70s, and now the people who were making that push are to the age where some of them need someone else looking out for them. Not everyone, of course, but the main thing is that folks are starting to realize this isn’t a closet issue.”
What is It?
Elder abuse can include physical, emotional or sexual mistreatment by another person. But none offer the opportunity for self-enrichment like financial exploitation.
“Financial bleeds into other types of abuse,” Williams said, “Where you see something else happening, there’s a good chance they’re being preyed on financially, too.”
Isolation — which becomes a slippery slope following retirement, friends dying, snow birding and otherwise moving away — only makes elders more vulnerable, so programming to keep seniors engaged and involved in their communities can help fortify them.
The Licking County, Ohio Aging Program maintains an adult day center with an on-duty nurse with a variety of activities common among senior centers. They include topics such as elder real estate law, identity protection and computer literacy. The program also offers services to home-bound seniors.
Financial exploitation is widely believed to be vastly underreported, with a 2000 study estimating that reported abuse accounts for only one of 25 actual incidents. Fraud via social media has accelerated the opportunities for an entire industry of criminals to reach potential victims.
Counties’ Ammunition
County human service departments vary in how much they can act on a senior’s behalf. Milwaukee County works with police and banks, but cannot independently pursue legal action.
“We can support the investigation, share records with police, but it takes the victim or their legal representative to ask for charges,” Williams said.
In contrast, Montgomery County can pursue legal action.
“We share our intakes with police and state’s attorneys so we can approach this in a joint fashion,” Wawrzusin said.
Montgomery County maintains a monthly meeting of its elder abuse task force, which includes the county’s police department, the ombudsman program funded by the Older Americans Act, adult protective services, licensure and regulatory services, the office of the state’s attorney and the office of the county attorney.
“We meet monthly, but we’re all on speed dial,” Wawrzusin said.
With all of those partners, it’s easy to find someone who can do outreach to community groups.
“Everyone brings their own professional prospective, but we always warn about the red flags,” he said. “Bruises, changes in behavior, spending changes. Is there someone new in their life?”
According to Williams, prevention of financial exploitation is priceless.
“Our goal is to try to stop the bleeding going forward, but we rarely see any real restitution,” she said. “Sometimes we can work with a perp to refund the money back, but the threshold for white collar crime is pretty high, around $50,000.”
Wawrzusin agrees.
“Once they have your money, it’s incredibly hard to get it back,” he said. “With online schemes, it could be out of the country already.”
He also warned against a pernicious aspect that may subconsciously play into caregivers’ actions. “If someone stands to inherit a lot of money, money that could be drained if expensive care is needed, there’s a little motivation to save,” he said.
The Realities of Aging
The people in the best position to speak up about abuse—the victims—often either don’t or can’t.
“It’s insidious,” Williams said. “They go about their daily lives and if they have early onset dementia, they lose capability without realizing it. It can become a domino effect for so many other health problems.”
Problems like alcoholism, drug abuse, mental illness, hoarding.
And volunteering those problems can seem like signing the death warrant for a life they relish.
“The biggest fear is that they’d be on a bullet train to the nursing home,” she said. “That’s a very pervasive thought. They don’t want to reach out for help because if they can’t help themselves, there must be no other choice.
“Plus, especially at this age, you’re dealing with very stoic people—the “Greatest Generation.” They gut things out; they don’t expose their problems. To many of them, reaching out to the government is the same as going on welfare.”
Milwaukee County works to ease fears of nursing home admission.
“The older someone is, the less you want to do to disturb their situation,” she said. “If we can keep someone in place, we want to do that. You can see someone deteriorate faster, physically and emotionally, [when they leave their home].”
She worries, though, that dementia, while a real threat, is often misdiagnosed.
“Dementia has become the new cancer,” she said. “We need better assessment between mental health and dementia. Make that the last diagnosis, instead of the first.”
