Adult Protective Services
Supportive services which are not of constitutional setting can also be provided to children and other people who care for the elderly person so as to protect him/her against elderly abuse by unscrupulous people. These services prevent the elders from being thrown out of their own homes by perpetrators. The elders however may be prone to abuse by the society and their families if they luck support services.
(Wiehe, 1998). There are various reasons as to why the elderly people may be susceptible to financial abuse by other people such as the family members and their financial advisors. One is that the old people fail to realize the value of their assets; this is due to lack of current financial information about their assets and they may not know that their homes and other assets have appreciated markedly.
Family members and financial advisors who are in charge of their assets will mostly want to take advantage of this fact by not disclosing the real current value of the assets that the elder has and therefore these perpetrators end up acquiring illegal gains from the elder. According to (Wilber & Reynolds, 1996), another reason why the elderly may be a target of perpetrators for the purpose of financial gains is because they maybe disabled requiring helpers to depend on them.
These guardians mostly have access to the finances and assets of the old person and may therefore gain a significant level of influence over them which they may end up using to gain financially from the elderly person. Another reason is that the elderly persons mostly receive monthly checks in their homes; this predictable pattern at which they are updated on their financial status may be used by their abusers to siphon them their finances since they will be able to predict when the elderly receives his money at home or when he will be needed to go to the bank.
The persons who may be interested in an elderly persons wealth believe that the person will not live long enough to take legal actions or get convincing witnesses to help them with their cases against them, the severely impaired are also not likely to take action against their perpetrators due to illnesses or a feeling of embarrassment since the persons abusing them may be the ones giving them love, care, shelter and companionship. The perpetrators therefore view these as perfect chances to manipulate the elderly and gain access to their finances and assets.
(Hardings, King & Kelly, 2002). The elderly persons may also lack financial knowledge about their assets therefore assigning other people to manage them for them which may lead to the manager manipulating the elder and making unscrupulous deals using their finances especially if the person has ill intensions. The advancing technology has made financial management complicated therefore the financial advisors or persons who may be having intension of stealing from the elders may use this technology to gain financially since the elders may not understand these new managing methods.
A study referred to as the National Elderly Abuse Incidence Study (NEAIS) which was funded from united states and conducted in 1996 provides a preview of new cases of elderly abuse that are taking place. The findings from the study indicated that the rate of abuse of the elderly persons is twice or three times higher than their general rate of population in the country. The study showed that the rate of abuse of female elders is higher that the abuse of male elders.
The study conducted by NEAIS further showed that almost half of the elderly persons who had reported cases of abuse or neglect to the Adult Protective Services were physically unable to take care of themselves. The study also showed that the rate of financial and domestic abuse is mostly conducted by family members and substitutes nine out of ten of the entire abuse of the elderly person. Further more, the study the study indicated that for every reported cases of neglect and abuse against the elderly persons, five cases went unreported. (Wilber & Reynolds, 1996).
