Tuesday, December 6, 2005
At either end of life we're vulnerable to those who would harm us. But while child abuse prevention is a high priority, those charged with protecting seniors say elder- abuse prevention programs are under-funded. In this next segment of our series, "The Aging Boom",we learn that one reason for the neglect of this age-old problem is under-reporting:
Realplayer / Windows Media / MP3Nationwide there were five million cases of elder abuse last year. In the last five years we've learned of more than 53,000 cases in Ohio. But the problem's probably worse.
The National Center on Elder Abuse estimates that for every five cases, only one is reported.
Dottie's caregiver Susie is in her Kent apartment when the call comes in:
This is one of these telemarketing things
Just hang up on artists.
They were just giving me... He's tried to call me several times... it's all a bunch of hooey.
Consumers lose 40 billion dollars a year to telemarketing fraud and older Americans are the primary targets:
I'm suspicious right away. "Oh you just won a trip to Disneyland.."
Yeah, you end up in Kucamunga.
But often good sense gives way to wishful thinking. The center for problem-oriented policing says successful frauds create the impression that the person's lucky to get the offer.
The Summit County Sheriffs Department's Jim Bouie says that kind of hard sell works well on seniors because they were raised to be friendly, and not to be rude:
I've talked with people and they tell me they don't like to hang up on telephone solicitors. They don't like to turn people away from their door, when they're knocking on their door soliciting with magazines or whatever product they have. A lot of people are just downright lonely. They need somebody to talk to.
And after being talked OUT of a large sum of money, they stop talking. They're either in denial, embarrassed, or afraid of being deemed incompetent. A State Task force on Elder Abuse reports only one in 25 victims of financial abuse , reports it.
83-year-old Bette Check is the exception. She turned in her own niece:
She apparently took my keys and had one made. While I was gone, she came in the house and took my jewelry that was in the chest and laying on the stove and I immediately realized it was gone and that's when I made the report.
She says she had taken her niece into her home because she trusted her:
Yes.. I was born and raised in Hudson. We never locked our doors. I wasn't afraid to go in the dark. Who would ever think your own niece would take and do such a thing as that?
More than 7000 dollars worth of Check's family heirlooms were never found. But she knows where to find her niece today:
I was there the day she was sentenced. I couldn't watch them put the handcuffs on her.
Nearly 60 percent of financial crimes against the elderly are perpetrated by their relatives.
Other forms of elder abuse include sexual, psychological and physical abuse and taking advantage of the susceptibility of older persons, particularly if they're vulnerable through some form of dementia, including Alzheimer's disease.
These crimes are hard to prosecute not only because victims won't come forward, but also because efforts to protect the elderly aren't coordinated.
Cleveland State's Georgia Anetzberger spoke about the problem in April at the Cleveland Clinic:
A good example is the state of Ohio where we have a about a half dozen laws that deal in important ways with elder abuse. And they have as the responsible agencies such authorities as the Department of Jobs and Family Services, the Ohio Department of Aging, the Ohio Attorney General's office, the Ohio Department of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities. But do you think they get together and in a coordinated way, deal with the interventions around this problem? That does not happen.
The primary agency investigating elder abuse in Ohio is Adult Protective Services.There is no federal line item for APS and no money for it in the current state budget. But a bill has been introduced to restore funding , and the Ohio elder Abuse Task force is working to improve monitoring, data collection and training for Adult Protective Services. Anetzberger served on the task force and says it's already begun to launch a public awareness campaign and create teams in each county to coordinate services.
On a national scale, there's also new hope. The Elder Justice Act that's languished in the last two sessions of Congress has been re-introduced . It would coordinate programs at the federal level as well as earmark more dollars for research and forensic programs. An Elder Justice Coalition of more than 370 organizations is mobilizing to lobby for passage of the bill. Anetzberger called for that kind of advocacy at last spring's Cleveland Clinic conference . She says despite the more than 60 percent increase in elder abuse in the last decade, the problem gets no respect:
It's not something that has been the rallying point for older people in our society. Victims don't come out as they did for spouse abuse. Caregivers don't talk about the issue like they do for Alzheimer's disease.
Yet it mirrors the incidence of Alzheimer's Disease , affecting five percent of the elderly population. It also mirrors the prevalence of child abuse.
But while federal laws prohibit child abuse there is no comparable law against elder abuse.
Elder victims of abuse are three times as likely to die as non-victims, but it's not violent crime that hits them hardest. Eldercide accounts for only five percent of homicides nationwide, and the violent crime rate in the over 65 age group has declined in the last three decades from 9 per thousand to just 2 per thousand.
The most common form of elder abuse is simple neglect. It happens at home, often due to caregiver stress. And it happens in nursing homes where aides are underpaid, undertrained and overworked. State-tested nurses aides take a two-week course and receive minimum wage.
Only one of ten of American nursing homes passed even basic standards.
Former National Institute on Aging Director Robert Butler says that affects one point six million people:
More than there are in hospitals in any given day, are in nursing homes. There are some wonderful nursing homes, but I'm saying one out of ten only meet basic standards.
* As for assisted living facilities, there are loopholes in state law. They have to report abuse by employees but NOT abuse by residents against OTHER residents. A state health department investigation last year in New Philadelphia discovered that an 84-year old dementia patient had been sexually assaulting five elderly women at Alterra Clare Bridge Cottage Assisted Living Center. The investigators said the center knew about it and did little to prevent it. No criminal charges could be brought and Alterra agreed to pay a 10,000 dollar fine.
Increasingly, the frail elderly are bypassing institutional settings and finding health care alternatives that let them live more independently. But many victims of elder abuse who live in their own or relatives' homes, live in fear of physical and mental abuse with nowhere to turn. A Congressional committee once called for emergency shelters for older victims of domestic violence. That was in 1981. Since then only eight such shelters have opened and none in Ohio.
Until public policy changes , many of our older citizens remain dependent on the kindness of strangers.
Usually it's a neighbor that will let us know that they're being deprived care or not getting the proper care, or that possibly somebody new has moved in and befriended them.
Lt Dale Gramley heads the Cuyahoga Falls Special Operations Unit that deals with elder abuse:
We get referrals from postmen, utility billing, for example, meter readers will let us know a house is getting very deteriorated... it's not just the police departments, the whole community has to be involved in it.
Getting involved means going beyond awarenessÉto caring:
People get very compassionate when they see a kid hit by a bicycle but are they that compassionate when they see an elderly person falling down? Or if they see the newspapers starting to pile up? Pay attention to your elderly neighbors, pay attention to your own family members. We need to protect the elderly with the same compassion that we protect the small children.
I'm Vivian Goodman, WKSU News.
* The Alterra Claire Bridge Cottage Assisted Living Facility is no longer
in operation. It was purchased by Saber Healthcare Group in October 2004 and
is operated as Amberwood Manor under new ownership and management.
Web Resources
The Elder Justice Coalition
National Center on Elder Abuse Visit our "Aging Boom" homepage for more about this series The Elder Care Locator Ohio Department of Aging
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