Wednesday, June 1, 2016
Most abusers of elderly know their victims
BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) — The vast majority of people who abuse older New Yorkers know their victim. And many of them are caretakers.
Those were among the staggering statistics released Tuesday by advocates for the elderly, as they kicked off a campaign aimed at highlighting and bringing to an end such abuse.
June is World Elder Abuse Awareness Month.
Across the state, more than 260,000 older adults are victims of at least one form of abuse. For every one case of elder abuse that’s reported in New York state, 24 cases go unreported — so that number should be considered a lot higher, according to Karen Nicolson, CEO of Legal Services for the Elderly.
Nicolson said an estimated $36 billion is lost to financial exploitation of older adults every year across the country.
In Erie County, there were more than 1,600 cases of elderly abuse were investigated in 2015; More than 1,200 of those were assigned to be assessed. Of those, 320 were for financial exploitation, 82 were instances of physical abuse, 163 were abuses by caregivers.
Most of the time, the abuse is not random.
“Ninety percent of the perpetrators of this terrible crime know the victim,” Nicolson said. “So, imagine that. Somebody’s stolen your money, somebody’s beaten you up, you’re elderly, you’re frail. You want to get help, but the person who is doing this to you is a caretaker of yours.”
There are plenty of resources available to help raise awareness, prevent and combat elder abuse.
Legal Services for the Elderly, Disabled or Disadvantaged of Western New York (LSED), is a nonprofit agency that provides free legal services to seniors and low-income adults. LSED can be contacted by calling (716)-853-3087.
Erie County Department of Social Services specializes in protective services to vulnerable adults, ages 18 and older whose conditions or circumstancess make them vulnerable to abuse, neglect and exploitation. Adult services can be reached at (716) 858-6877.
More information on elder abuse and events being held in Erie County this month can be found by clicking here.
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Most abusers of elderly know their victims
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5 comments:
Not true the way the article is written. Professionals are the biggest abusers of the elderly, so this article isn't telling it the way it is.
I agree with Annette. Caretakers are a problem, but they're not the #1 source of abuse. This article is good, but it loses steam because the inaccuracy of who really is main culprit.
Exactly right , Annette and Mike. The professionals are the abusers. And IN addition, caretakers. In my mother's situation, caretakers in my parents home threatened me, my parents, said they can get rid of me anytime they want, said nothing will happen to them because of the agency that backed these caretakers. With the enormous fright in the house and so much stolen and them sitting for 7 hours straight to SHOW they can do whatever they want and get paid ,now my mom was trying to wear any jewelry she owned so they would not take it. They got her alone, tried to get jewelry off my mother.She, as BRAVE people do, fought back two at a time and then the caretakers called the police , said she was delusional and she was taken to a hospital and drugged . To keep the idea that my mother is combative, she has been drugged almost to death and when a NORMAL person fights to NOT be drugged, tries to get out of forced institutions that hold them there, knows their assets have been taken, their property sold, they are then either Alzheimers or Dementia patients who need drugging so they cannot talk anymore and are SOO "combative"(favorite word) they must now be restrained and locked up forever while being made sick. And guess what . no one can do anything about it !!
There are some definite inaccuracies in this article. For example, one of the phrases I disagree with is, "There are plenty of resources available to help raise awareness, prevent and combat elder abuse."
I wonder how many of these abuse cases were done by a professional guardians.
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