Crisis & Opportunity
Posted on May 3, 2010 by bob in ElderJust
An 88-year-old retired professor with mild dementia was “befriended” by a predator who visited him almost daily, slowly gaining the professor’s trust. Together they visited the professor’s bank more than 40 times in a year, withdrawing, in small increments, almost $300,000. A member of the professor’s Sunday School class alerted authorities to this pattern of exploitation.
This is just one example of approximately 6,000 cases of elder abuse reported in Alabama each year through the Departments of Human Resources, Public Health, Mental Health and Senior Services. N ational research by the American Bar Association, the AARP Foundation, and other respected groups reveals that in every state the number of unreported elder abuse cases is six to fifteen times the number of reported cases. In Alabama, this means 30,000 to 75,000 cases of elder abuse go unreported each year.
The recent inclusion of a special “Elder Justice Act” in the new federal healthcare reform law is encouraging for those involved in this area. The provision offers federal grants to communities and states to publicize elder abuse as well as add social work case investigators, specially trained prosecutors, and law enforcement officers.
The key to elder abuse prevention and prosecution lies first in building stronger public awareness across the state. Sadly, more than 70 percent of severe elder abuse cases occur within families or through “trusted” caregivers. Only a small fraction occur in group homes, assisted living, or nursing homes.
Bill Fuller is an attorney, former member of the Alabama House of Representatives, past Commissioner of the Alabama Department of Human Resources, and the Founding Director of the Alabama Elder Justice Project. He can be reached at 334-414-1941, or at billfuller@ freshsprings.org.
