Beware the Financial Abuse of Psychologically Vulnerable Seniors

A new study advises clinical gerontologists to be aware that psychologically vulnerable seniors are at risk of financial exploitation.

Researchers at Wayne State University, in collaboration with Illinois Institute of Technology, discovered financial exploitation of the elderly is on the rise.

This exploitation, which includes telemarketing scams, fake home repairs, fake check scams, identity theft and more, costs approximately $3 billion each year.

Experts say the research is unique with the listing of factors that predict exposure to financial fraud or victimization. The study is also the first to review financial exploitation with a psychological-vulnerability perspective.

“This study illustrates how we can enhance our understanding of this major issue by performing a clinical analysis instead of one that stops at epidemiological or broad population-based reviews,” said Peter Lichtenberg, Ph.D., lead author of the paper. “Those in the clinical study showed characteristics of extreme depression symptoms and perceived low social-status fulfillment, thus showing they were more vulnerable to the experience of theft of scams. “

The study included 4,440 participants.

Researchers discovered that among the 4,440 participants, those who were the most psychologically vulnerable – with the highest levels of depression and lowest levels of social-needs fulfillment — experienced higher levels of fraud compared to those who were not vulnerable psychologically.

“One of the most significant findings of our study was with the most psychologically vulnerable population,” said Lichtenberg. “The combination of high depression and low social-status fulfillment was associated with a 226 percent increase in fraud prevalence in this population.

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Beware the Financial Abuse of Psychologically Vulnerable Seniors