Financial abuse and exploitationName:

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Financial abuse and exploitationFinancial abuse and exploitation affect many older adults in America without their knowledge. It refers to when someone else takes advantage of and misuses assets of an older and a vulnerable person for their gain. Currently, it is the vast growing forms of abuse against older people, especially those with disabilities. The older people often require help from various people such as their children, caretakers, neighbours, friends, attorneys, personal accountants, pastors and even healthcare providers who in turn exploit them and misappropriate their assets. Most of the above people often exploit the seniors and even neglect them afterwards.

An act was put in place to protect the elders from such abuse in 2006. Older Americans act of 2006 states that financial abuse and exploitation mirrors fraudulent activities against the assets of elders by anyone be it the family members or other caregivers for their gains CITATION ACL17 l 1033 (ACL, 2017). These abuses take various forms such as crossbreed financial exploitation, abuse by family and caregivers, and scams intended to harm the seniors.

The common abuses from the family and the primary caregivers include; using the elders money and property without the elders permission, forgery of the elders’ signatures in order to access their finances, coercion of the elders into signing documents to transfer their property or rewriting their wills CITATION Mar18 l 1033 (DeLiema, 2018), obtaining the authority over the elder’s attorney, and borrowing money or property from the elders and failing to return it. Scams, on the other hand, happen outside family and shelters such as when buying merchandise they get overpriced, fake receipts at shopping places and pharmaceuticals, fake lotteries, impersonation, offering unnecessary loans, charging for coupons, and fraudulent contracts and investments.

Crossbreed financial exploitation refers to the exploitation that is executed alongside physical, emotional abuse, and neglect of the elders. Such is often referred to as hybrid financial exploitations, and it affects elders who live in the same household as the caregivers, those that have been abused over time and are likely to have underlying health issues that confine them to a vulnerable state. The caregivers are bound to take over the property and finances of the elders while giving poor treatment to the elders.

The Older Americans Act was put in place to protect the elders from exploitation which has led to a chain of problems apart from losing their finances and property. In most cases, the elders have gone through poor diets due to lack of enough finances, loss of homes and various properties due to fraud rendering those homeless, lack of proper medical care, depression, anxiety, absenteeism at work, and emotional abuse.

National Adult Protective Services Association took the initiative to deal with financial abuse and exploitation in 2010 whereby they staged the first National Summit on Elder Financial Exploitation in San Diego, California to discuss the various types of abuse and initiate programs to help deal with vast growing abuse. In 2011, a National Elder Financial Exploitation Advisory Board was established to increase awareness against the exploitation of elders and to discuss possible strategies to deal with the problem of abuse and exploitation of elders further.

In conclusion, financial abuse and exploitation still as a long way to go in America since not all abuses and fraudulent activities against the elderly go unreported. It is still hard to determine the exact percentages of abuse taking place. However, various bodies are actively working to combat the problem and help the elderly keep what is legally theirs.

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY ACL. (2017, November 08). Older American Act. Retrieved from Administration for Community Living: https://acl.gov/about-acl/authorizing-statutes/older-americans-act

DeLiema, M. (2018). Elder Fraud and Financial Exploitation: Application of Routine Activity Theory. The Gerontologist, 706-718.