The SCAN Foundation

Financial abuse of the elderly -- theft, deception and swindling-- is increasing along with the expansion of the population needing long-term services and supports. As more people suffer from frailties and dementia, more of them will become potential victims. The annual loss by victims of elder financial abuse is at least $2.6 billion, according to the study, “Broken Trust, Elders, Family and Finances,” by Met Life’s Mature Market Institute.

“The perpetrators of elder financial abuse are typically not strangers and most are people who have gained the trust of the older individual, including business and service professionals and family members,” said the March 2009 study, in which Met Life was joined by the National Committee for the Prevention of Elder Abuse and the Center for Gerontology at Virginia Polytechnic Institute. For the first time, the federal government will provide a regular source of funding to combat financial abuse of elders, in recognition of the seriousness of the problem. The new health reform law is going to provide money for state and local adult protective services to “investigate reports of abuse, neglect and financial exploitation of elderly and disabled adults, and then insure the safety of those proven to have been victimized,” according to an April 23, 2010 post in The New Old Age blog in the New York Times. “It’s a momentous day for the victims and the people who serve them,’ said Joe Synder, the director of older adult protective services at the Philadelphia Corporation for Aging and the public policy chairman and former president of the National Adult Protective Services Organization,” the blog post said. “We have been waiting for this forever.”