Vulnerability Due to Aging

Jul 25, 2016

By Rick Law of the Estate Planning Center at Law Elder Law, a multi-generation law firm serving seniors, boomers, and their families in the Western Chicago suburb of Aurora in Illinois.

I recently spoke with senior victims advocate Linda Voirin, LSW. She is the victims’ advocate for the Seniors and Persons with Disabilities Unit, Office of Joseph H. McMahon, Kane County (Illinois) state’s attorney. Throughout our discussion, Ms. Voirin outlined the difficulty in prosecuting senior financial exploitation and elder-abuse cases.

We discussed how often a person is victimized because, even though they’re not technically incapacitated, they become vulnerable due to aging. All too often, they are willing to accept this abuse. It’s hard to admit and accept your frailties, so It’s a tradeoff that the abused person might be willing to make, in spite of the abuse.

Linda lamented having seen some difficult situations involving financial abuse. She recently recounted the story of a person whose grandson was living in the basement. The elderly person never went downstairs because she physically could not handle the stairs. And the grandson was downstairs dealing drugs and doing drugs. But yet, he was the caregiver.

Now that’s a very dangerous situation on many levels for this elderly person. However, the elderly person was adamant that her grandson was the only one able to keep her in her home. She was visually limited as well as physically limited. Linda told me, “We had to get a lot of care people to come in and come together to be able to begin a transition from that home. But if we had gone in and just ripped that guy out of the house and said, “That’s the end of this!” prior to putting anything in place to assist with transitions, that would have been just devastating to her. It was devastating anyway, but it certainly would have been worse and could have hastened her death.”

As you can imagine, after going through the traumatic experience of some form of abuse, the victim often feels lonely and depressed. If takes a lot of emotional and physical effort for the aged person to leave the comforts of their home and familiar surroundings and adapt to a new place. He or she will find the new environment strange and will miss the familiar. It may very well cause a decline, both physically and emotionally.

If you’re ready to start getting your estate in order and secure your assets for the “worst-case” scenario, please give our office a call at 800-310-3100. Your first consultation is absolutely free.  We’ll let you know what steps you need to take, right now, to protect yourself and your family.  Call now.

Sincerely,

Rick L. Law, Attorney, Estate Planner for Retirees.

“Vulnerability Due to Aging” by Rick Law of the Estate Planning Center at Law Elder Law, a multi-generation law firm serving seniors, boomers, and their families in the Western Chicago suburb of Aurora in Illinois.

I recently spoke with senior victims advocate Linda Voirin, LSW. She is the victims’ advocate for the Seniors and Persons with Disabilities Unit, Office of Joseph H. McMahon, Kane County (Illinois) state’s attorney. Throughout our discussion, Ms. Voirin outlined the difficulty in prosecuting senior financial exploitation and elder-abuse cases.

We discussed how often a person is victimized because, even though they’re not technically incapacitated, they become vulnerable due to aging. All too often, they are willing to accept this abuse. It’s hard to admit and accept your frailties, so It’s a tradeoff that the abused person might be willing to make, in spite of the abuse.

Linda lamented having seen some difficult situations involving financial abuse. She recently recounted the story of a person whose grandson was living in the basement. The elderly person never went downstairs because she physically could not handle the stairs. And the grandson was downstairs dealing drugs and doing drugs. But yet, he was the caregiver.

Now that’s a very dangerous situation on many levels for this elderly person. However, when we got involved, she was adamant, telling us that he was the only one able to keep her in her home. She was visually limited as well as physically limited. And we had to get a lot of care people to come in and come together to be able to begin a transition from that home. But if we had gone in and just ripped that guy out of the house and said, “That’s the end of this!” prior to putting anything in place to assist with transitions, that would have been just devastating to her. It was devastating anyway, but it certainly would have been worse and could have hastened her death.

As you can imagine, after going through the traumatic experience of some form of abuse, the victim often feels lonely and depressed. If takes a lot of emotional and physical effort for the aged person to leave the comforts of their home and familiar surroundings and adapt to a new place. He or she will find the new environment strange and will miss the familiar. It may very well cause a decline, both physically and emotionally.

If you’re ready to start getting your estate in order and secure your assets for the “worst-case” scenario, please give our office a call at 800-310-3100. Your first consultation is absolutely free.  We’ll let you know what steps you need to take, right now, to protect yourself and your family.  Call now.

Sincerely,

Rick L. Law, Attorney, Estate Planner for Retirees.

Rick was named the #1 Illinois elder law estate planning attorney by Leading Lawyer Magazine. He has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, AARP Magazine, TheStreet.com, and numerous newspapers and articles. Rick is the lead attorney for Law Elder Law, LLP, focusing in Estate Planning, Guardianship, and Nursing Home Solutions. His goal is to give retirees an informed edge when it comes to dealing with an uncertain future.  Get flexible retirement strategies that work during good times and bad, plus information on how you can save your home and assets from being used to pay for long term care.  Call 800-310-3100 for your free consultation now!