Aging America: Elder abuse, use of shelters rising

http://www.centurylink.net/news/rea...ass&action=2&lang=en&_LT=UNLC_USNWU00L2_UNEWS

MASON, Ohio (AP) — She raises her hands to her snow-white hair in a gesture of frustrated bewilderment, then slowly lowers them to cover eyes filling with tears. The woman, in her 70s, is trying to explain how she wound up in a shelter that could well be where she spends the rest of her life.

While the woman was living with a close family member, officials at the Shalom Center say, her money was being drained away by people overcharging for her grocery shopping, while her body and spirit were sapped by physical neglect and emotional torment. She says she was usually ordered to "go to bed," where she lay in a dark room, upset, unable to sleep.

"She just yelled at me all the time. Screamed at me, cussed me out," the woman says of a family member. "I don't know what happened. She just got tired of me, I guess."

The Shalom Center offers shelter, along with medical, psychological and legal help, to elderly abuse victims in this northern Cincinnati suburb. It is among a handful in the country that provide sanctuary from such treatment, a problem experts say is growing along with the age of the nation's population.

Much more at 4 page article......

Thanks reader, subject close to my heart.

I work in a law office that deals with elder law and elder care concerns. Many of our clients are elderly.

Elder abuse can range from physical, emotional, neglect, to financial exploitation and it happens a lot. Much more than I think people realize.

It is a sad society we live in where our elders are tossed aside the moment they become inconvenient.

More sad, most abuse is perpetrated not by strangers, but as with child abuse, by trusted family members. The final insult.