World Elder Abuse Awareness Day Archives - The Law Office of Barbara E. Cashman

Observing World Elder Abuse Awareness Day, June 15, 2018

Date June 13, 2018

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A Wee Highland coo…

WEEAD is Friday! If you want to show support in social media for this day, try this Thunderclap link to add your voice. I write this post after a move to a new office, which is comfortable and spacious, where I am nestled amidst tenants who are friendly and engaging. It has happens to be just a few blocks from where I attended junior high school.

Community has many definitions depending on the various contexts of our interactions with each other and where we are interacting with each other. A big part of community is seeing the other person and being seen by another. Being seen is something we take for granted. Last week, a man hid himself under the front of a public bus, which then dragged the man’s body nearly half a mile until coming to a stop. This took place on the street where my office is located, right in front of my office window. But I didn’t see it happen. The bus driver obviously didn’t see the man, which ended in the man’s tragic death. It seems that our ability to see one another is becoming increasingly more difficult.

WEEAD – Prevention of Elder Abuse Begins with Seeing Elders as a Contributing Part of Our Community

In our world, seeing is a precursor to engaging with the other. Engagement can lead to effective participation. Take a look at this link to The Road to Elder Justice Virtual Art Gallery with many beautiful expressions of what elders contribute. On this WEEAD, events are scheduled in nearly every state to raise awareness. Check out this event organized by the Boulder County Area Agency on Aging. Here’s a link to a Facebook Live broadcast today at 5:00 p.m. MDT about how the Office of the Inspector General at the Social Security Administration detects and prevents suspected elder financial exploitation and how people can protect themselves and others from mistreatment.

A question follows: what do we see about elder abuse and how do we see it?

One helpful resource has identified the beliefs about elder abuse as “the swamp:” which includes limiting beliefs (often mistaken for conventional wisdom…) such as:

modern life is the problem – we simply don’t care enough about older people so caregivers are pushed to the limit and older people are devalued;

there are not enough resources for any solutions – there is not enough money for prosecution and surveillance of perpetrators, or raising awareness and education about elder abuse to help recognize it or for providing support for caregivers and as a result, nothing can really be done;

the individuals affected are really the problem – perhaps these elders had it coming as payback, many older people are difficult to deal with or have personal weaknesses, the perpetrators are greedy, lazy, opportunistic, or bad people who cannot be deterred, and we’re either all responsible for it or no one is;

elder abuse is vaguely defined and hard to recognize for many people – elder abuse as such is not acceptable, but many forms of neglect don’t qualify as abuse, including sexual abuse of elder women.

This ”swamp” thinking described above is hardly “thinking”, as these represent only relatively common types of limiting beliefs like: universalizing a problem to inflate its significance and make “solving” it impossible; personalizing elder abuse to make it only about certain types of individuals who are affected; catastrophizing it so that the only “response” can be hand-wringing; and making unrealistic or false distinctions about what is acceptable behavior and what is not so as to make identification of the real problem impossible.

We Must Refuse to Accept That Elderhood is Only About Loss and Marginalization

Like the “swamp thinking” above, many of us have unexamined beliefs about what it means to be “old.” These beliefs can reflect scarcity beliefs and thinking about the world each of us lives in. Those beliefs can dictate what we see in elders and how their role in society is marginalized. In this respect, the marginalization of elders as a kind of “lesser than” or “has been” segment of our culture and economy becomes a kind of collective self-fulfilling prophecy. Sociologist Robert K. Merton coined that phrase in 1948 with these terms:

The self-fulfilling prophecy is, in the beginning, a false definition of the situation evoking a new behavior which makes the original false conception come true. This specious validity of the self-fulfilling prophecy perpetuates a reign of error. For the prophet will cite the actual course of events as proof that he was right from the very beginning.

Looking at the relationship between our diminished expectations of what is possible in elderhood and what we expect to see, based on our expectations, generally leads to … These expectations become the self-fulfilling prophecy, for ourselves and for others. But, this challenge becomes an opportunity to change our perspective and change our minds.

There are good resources available that help us to reframe the story of elder abuse from one based on inevitable decline, vulnerability and victimhood to a story from a different perspective, reframed to tell of empowering ourselves and elders to engage with and participate in pro-social activities designed to strengthens the ties which already exist – instead of disowning them because of some of the difficulties we have come to experience.

I will write more about pro-social behaviors we can nurture and support to prevent elder abuse – as individuals and collectively.

World Elder Abuse Awareness Day, June 15, 2017

Date June 15, 2017

Posted by Barb Cashman

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Face on the Rock of Cashel

This isn’t my first post about World Elder Abuse Awareness Day or WEAAD for short. It’s an annual post for me on this day – last year I looked at the “international” part of WEAAD, as well as the national (federal) focus. This year I will focus on a local aspect – as in Colorado law that can be used to stop an abuser straightaway.

First let’s revisit the basics of what can constitute elder abuse – keeping in mind that each state has its own set of laws addressing this matter, as does the federal government. This lack of a common definition is part of the challenge in reporting elder abuse and identifying the numbers of elders involved. But I think the biggest challenge remains in recognizing that elder abuse is a problem that affects our society, not just individuals taken advantage of by strangers or harmed by their loved ones because they are perceived as old, of little value to society, or as an impediment to an heir’s inheritance…

While there is an unfortunate variety of types of elder abuse – elder abuse generally includes:

Mistreatment – this is the preferred term for the American Society of Aging, which is offering a course on mistreatment as comprising abuse and neglect;

Abuse of a financial nature/exploitation – this includes the unauthorized or illegal use of or access to an elder’s financial resources that covers a range of activities such as theft, undue influence, deception or fraud, misrepresentation or coercion;

Abuse of physical nature – this includes violence of a physical nature, including slapping, hitting, restraining or confining an elder, overmedicating or giving improper medication;

Abuse of sexual nature – includes a caregiver forcing an elder to watch or participate in sexual acts;

Abuse of psychological or emotional nature – can be very subtle when employed by a manipulative or cunning family member or care provider;

Neglect of an elder can occur when a caregiver fails to actively or passively fulfill the role of caregiver (paid attendant or unpaid family member) or when an elder self-neglects.

The Adult Protection Services – APS for short – is part of the Colorado Department of Human Services and they have broken their page into four basic categories: caretaker neglect; exploitation; physical or sexual abuse; and self-neglect. But this offers a very broad brush approach of what to report!

There are other options available in addition to simply reporting suspected mistreatment, abuse or neglect. One of these involves getting immediate and direct protection against an abuser by means of obtaining a civil protection order. A civil protection order proceeding is in county court and is available to persons who elders (and at risk adults, those who have developmental disabilities or some other cognitive impairment) who are victims of abuse to prevent further contact by the alleged perpetrator of the abuse. Read more about the instructions and forms available on the Colorado State judicial website here.

The JDF 402 form for a complaint or motion for civil protection order specifically lists “abuse of the elderly or at-risk adult,” and cites Colo. Rev. Stat. §26-3.1-101(1) and (7). That latter section of the statute, which is the definitional portion of the “protective services for at-risk adults,” provides

(7) “Mistreatment” means:

(a) Abuse;

(b) Caretaker neglect;

(c) Exploitation;

(d) An act or omission that threatens the health, safety, or welfare of an at-risk adult; or

(e) An act or omission that exposes an at-risk adult to a situation or condition that poses an imminent risk of bodily injury to the at-risk adult.

You can see that there is astatutory provision for mistreatment that comprises abuse in our state. The term is broad and necessarily so. Remember that the statistics used by the National Council on Aging indicate that elders who have suffered abuse have a 300% higher risk of death as compared to those who have not been mistreated.

The take-away for this post is that there is an immediately available remedy to stop the mistreatment of elders in the form of a civil protection order. The county courts have the forms available and magistrates or judicial officers to review the complaints or motions for such relief against an abuser respond quickly.

For elders who are suffering mistreatment at the hands of an abuser, a civil protection order can prevent further harm and help to safeguard the elder’s health. I believe that raising awareness of available remedies to stop further abuse of elders is an important step toward realizing the goals of WEAAD.

World Elder Abuse Awareness Day – June 15, 2016

Date June 15, 2016

Posted by Barb Cashman

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Samurai Mask

Just eleven days ago, I presented at the 6^th annual Jefferson County Senior Law day. No fewer than three of the sixteen topical presentations concerned preventing or combatting elder financial abuse. It is on everyone’s minds as the scammers and predators continue to devise ways to relieve elders of their retirement savings.

But elder abuse isn’t just of a financial or transactional nature. Today’s post is about the World Elder Abuse Awareness Day (WEAAD). Yes, WEAAD is on Facebook – check out their page here.

Elder abuse can take a number of forms and while some of it often has characteristics common the domestic violence, working with elder victims of abuse has a unique skill set. The National Clearinghouse on Abuse in Later Life has links to webinars and other information available here on raising awareness about elder abuse and promoting dignity across the lifespan.

More information, including helpful fact sheets in several languages, is available here from the U.S Department of Health & Human Services, National Center on Elder Abuse.

According to the United Nations, which established World Elder Abuse Awareness Day in General Assembly Res. 66/127, the global population of people aged 60 years and older will more than double, from 542 million in 1995 to about 1.2 billion in 2025.

Did you know there is proposed federal legislation on this topic? Read more about the Elder Abuse Victims Act of 2016 here. While it has a very slim chance of passage, its third introduction in the house provides the following as its full title, written by its sponsor Peter King (R. N.Y.):

To better protect, serve, and advance the rights of victims of elder abuse and exploitation by establishing a program to encourage States and other qualified entities to create jobs designed to hold offenders accountable, enhance the capacity of the justice system to investigate, pursue, and prosecute elder abuse cases, identify existing resources to leverage to the extent possible, and assure data collection, research, and evaluation to promote the efficacy and efficiency of the activities described in this Act.

Raising awareness about elder abuse is a community effort! Watch this sixteen minute and emotionally powerful video about confronting elder abuse in America on the National Council on Aging’s “Elder Justice Now Campaign” page – it gives a face to victims of elder abuse. I count myself among those who aspire to old age one day, and I believe it is up to us to take measures now to ensure that elders in our community command respect and dignity and are protected from exploitation and abuse from opportunists and predators.

That’s all for now.

June 15 is World Elder Abuse Awareness Day

Date June 12, 2013

Posted by Barb Cashman

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The National Center on Elder Abuse of the Administration on Aging has declared June 15 World Elder Abuse Awareness Day. Go to this link to find a local activity. Yes, since this is a “World” day, there is also a United Nations declaration and such commemorations started in 2006 – in case you’re wondering. The U.S. HHS Administration on Aging suggests three ways to be involved:

(1) Developing an educational program or press conference;

(2) Volunteering to call or visit an isolated senior; or

(3) Submitting an editorial or press release to your local newspaper to create awareness of elder abuse, neglect, and exploitation.

I hope this blog post meets the third criterion!

You can find excellent resources and stay posted on Colorado developments by going to the website of the Colorado Coalition for Elder Rights & Abuse Prevention and you can sign up for their e-newsletter there. In my recent visit to the site there was a link to a page entitled “culture change” which addresses person-centered care. You can click here for my blog post refresher on that topic and its originator, Tom Kitwood. The culture change that the CCERAP site describes is about focusing on the needs of the individuals requiring care and those working closely with them. This challenge is one we face on personal, community, national and global levels with the ever-growing number of elders in our communities. It forces us to think about how we would want to be treated in similar circumstances.

So on the topic of elder abuse and the vulnerability of a particular group of elders – those experiencing cognitive decline associated with a dementia disease process, I will take a look at Alzheimer’s Disease and Recent Observations from Biophysics.

Okay, I don’t think I’ve ever typed the word “biophysics” but there it is. I subscribe to Scientific American’s email news and there was featured a guest blog post by Frank Ferrone entitled “Dangerous Braids that Tangle in Brains and Veins.” You can read it here. This article is about the importance of research, the accumulation of scientific knowledge and connections that can be made at a later date when more research is accomplished or perhaps investigatory techniques, often technological, allow more thorough information to be gathered. Alzheimer’s Disease is a very particular type of dementia and it is only conclusively diagnosed post-mortem of those who had the disease. Its calling card is the beta-amyloid protein molecule which causes the plaques and tangles associated with the shrinkage of brain function. It turns out that these braided molecules share a lethal trait with the deadly molecules associated with sickle-cell disease, which allows both of these molecules to quickly build their housing (polymers) and spread their disease to a wider area. What Ferrone concludes, hence the biophysics moniker – is that the two diseases [Alzheimer’s and sickle cell], disparate in manifestation, obey the same fundamental rules. This is what Biophysics is all about, the discovery of fundamental physical laws that govern the behavior of diverse biological systems. Ferrone’s discovery (made with others), published back in 1985, was relied upon by Alzheimer’s researchers at Cambridge University for their new discovery.

Biophysics and biochemistry figure prominently in research in dementia – its proper diagnosis, treatment and of course prevention. Interested in the aging process in terms of entropy, mitochondrial decay? Read this excerpt.

All this overlap reminds me of a blog post I did for SoloinColo on The Hero’s Journey, in the Facebook for Lawyers context. . . . where I described our networked society in the mythological term “special world.” That post (part of a twelve part series) can be read here and referred to an article by a mathematical biologist. Perhaps Alzheimer’s research will continue to be a cooperative proving ground in helpful ways. If research on the disease can promote cooperation in substantial and significant ways and our ideas about identity and functioning are challenged with an ever-growing number of elder-boomers – then perhaps there is hope for us!

Yes, I could publish this post without a poem, but with no shortage of beautiful sources . . . why would I? This one (known as II,16) is by Rainer Maria Rilke (yes, he is one of my favorites):

How surely gravity’s law,

strong as an ocean current,

takes hold of even the strongest thing

and pulls it toward the heart of the world.

Each thing –

each stone, blossom, child –

is held in place.

Only we, in our arrogance,

push out beyond what we belong to

for some empty freedom.

If we surrendered

to earth’s intelligence

we could rise up rooted, like trees.

Instead we entangle ourselves

in knots of our own making

and struggle, lonely and confused.

So, like children, we begin again

to learn from the things,

because they are in God’s heart;

they have never left him.

This is what the things can teach us:

to fall,

patiently to trust our heaviness.

Even a bird has to do that

before he can fly.

From Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God, translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy.

Life is uncertain and old age – even more so. Perhaps old age and its inward pulling-ness is a kind of gravity, a force that we all share but one that isn’t easily recognized or understood. Is this because we each live our own lives, separately and pulling away, or perhaps as a result of that long-term denial. How difficult would it be to trust that gravity, that heaviness that we can look at things – our lives and our relationships – in new ways . . . even in our oldness (or perhaps only as a result of it).