Today is the 6th Annual World Elder Abuse Awareness Day.  Please educate yourself!  Locally our law enforcement agencies are strained and criminal charges are not always pursued.  Victims are often reluctant to talk about abuse.  We have excellent local resources for education, however, and civil remedies (i.e. lawsuits) are sometimes successful against financial offenders. 

Click here for Under the Radar, an in-depth report on the prevalence of abuse for individuals over 60 here in New York State.  The major findings of the study include:

■ The findings of the study point to a dramatic gap between the rate of elder abuse events reported by older New Yorkers and the number of cases referred to and served in the formal elder abuse service system.
■ Overall the study found an elder abuse incidence rate in New York State that was nearly 24 times
greater than the number of cases referred to social service, law enforcement or legal authorities who
have the capacity as well as the responsibility to assist older adult victims.
■ Psychological abuse was the most common form of mistreatment reported by agencies providing data
on elder abuse victims in the Documented Case Study. This finding stands in contrast to the results of
the Self-Reported Study in which financial exploitation was the most prevalent form of mistreatment
reported by respondents as having taken place in the year preceding the survey.
■ Applying the incidence rate estimated by the study to the general population of older New Yorkers,
an estimated 260,000 older adults in the state had been victims of at least one form of elder abuse in
the preceding year (a span of 12 months between 2008-2009).

We can all do more, including being vigilant if you are a successor agent – did you know you can ask the acting agent for an accounting?  Just one little thing can make a difference.