People with Dementia are Vunerable to Elder Abuse

This is the Truth, Lies and Alzheimer's Show, brought to you by Passionate World Talk Radio and Global Media Network LLC. Passionate World Talk Radio is a wholly owned subsidiary of Global Media Network LLC, and our motto is to educate, enlighten, and entertain. I'm Ken Poglia, and I'm here to introduce your host, She's an Alzheimer's and dementia expert, a best-selling author, and a world-renowned public speaker. She is Lisa Skinner, and we have a fantastic episode planned for you today. Lisa will be discussing whether or not seniors with dementia are more vulnerable to elder abuse. Interesting question. And in her What's New segment, A dementia risk study finds 11 key factors behind developing Alzheimer's and related dementias. I can't wait to hear it, and with that, I'll hand it over to Lisa Skinner for today's show.

Thanks, Ken. Hi, everybody. Welcome back to another new episode of The Truth Lies in Alzheimer's Show. I am Lisa Skinner, your host, and I don't know how many of you happened to see yesterday's— last night's 60 Minutes edition, but one of their stories was about how in the United States senior citizens are the most targeted demographic of our population that are targeted for scams, starting at the age of 60 and over. And I watched it, and they talked about the pretty popular scam that's going on now where— an AI voice that has been kind of copied calls a senior and insists that it's their grandchild and that for one reason or another they need money. And these people are being scammed out of tens of thousands of dollars to pay an attorney to help get their grandchildren out of whatever trouble the claimant says they're in. Well, this is also true about people with dementia, and I'm going to cite an article that I found that basically strips down for you the signs of elder abuse in seniors with dementia. Because seniors with dementia are more vulnerable to elder abuse than any other demographic of our population. And when you have cognitive impairment, that obviously stands to reason. So I looked at a lot of different resources on this topic, and the one I'm going to— to cite for you. Actually, I love the way they broke down what to look for, the different types of elder abuse, because there are several different categories of elder abuse. And then I'm going to give you some resources in case you do suspect that a senior, especially with dementia, is a victim of elder abuse. So, as we know, seniors with dementia sometimes do make false accusations. That's a very common behavior with Alzheimer's disease and dementia. We've talked about that many, many times. They claim that their family members or caregivers are mistreating them or stealing from them. And in these cases, dementia is making them paranoid or delusional. But sadly, there are times when seniors with dementia are being abused. They are the most vulnerable population of people. People with dementia— with Alzheimer's disease or dementia are especially vulnerable to abuse because of their impaired memory, communication skills, and judgment. And there are so many unscrupulous people out there taking advantage of these vulnerable seniors because they are easy targets. Well, first of all, they're not likely to report the problem, and the main reason is they don't think anybody's going to believe them. So, here are warning signs of elder abuse in people with dementia. Elder abuse is any form of mistreatment that causes harm or loss to an older adult. Abuse is generally divided into 6 categories. And in each category, I'm going to share with you the red flags that are strong signs that elder abuse is occurring. So even if your older adult does not recognize what's happening or cannot speak for themselves, these are warning signs that will help you notice when something suspicious is going on so you can advocate on their behalf. So one of the types of physical abuse— of elder abuse is physical abuse. And the definition of physical abuse is when someone purposely causes injury, pain, or impairment to an older adult. But this also includes isolation and inappropriate use of restraints. When I worked in the assisted living and memory care industry and was actually physically in a building, I learned that something as simply as yelling or screaming at somebody, an elderly person, especially with dementia, is a form of elder abuse. So, it's— Taken very, very seriously, but you really need to know what to look for, what to recognize. So some of the warning signs for physical abuse do include unexplained injuries like bruises, welts, burns, new scars, broken bones, sprains, or dislocations. You might look to see if their eyeglasses have recently been broken. Signs of being restrained would look like rope marks or on their wrist. And also, a huge red flag that's been noted is a caregiver who refuses to let you see the older adult without them being present. The second category is emotional abuse. And the definition of emotional abuse includes— here we go again— verbal abuse, threats, harassment, humiliation, and intimidation. Those all are forms of elder abuse. Warning signs of emotional abuse include any kind of threats being made, belittling, or trying to control behavior that you observe. When the older adult shows increased signs of agitation, like, oh, they might be rocking back and forth, sucking, or mumbling to themselves, that could be an indication of abuse. Unexplained withdrawal from normal activities, a sudden change in their alertness, Or unexpected depression. That's a key sign. Again, the caregiver refusing to let you see the older adult without them being present. Emotional abuse can be especially tough to spot in seniors with dementia. Many of these signs of abuse are similar to typical dementia Symptoms like paranoia. That's very common. If you spot these signs, listen to your gut and be watchful. Then investigate until you're satisfied that your older adult is not being harmed. There's a lot of financial abuse to elders that are happening these days. It's all over the news. And the definition of financial abuse is when someone illegally or improperly uses an older adult's money, property, or other resources. Well, that includes cashing their checks without their permission, forging their signature, stealing their money or possessions, coercing or deceiving them into signing documents like contracts or a will. And the warning signs of financial abuse can include sudden changes in the older adult's financial situation. Look for irregular spending and withdrawals from the older adult's accounts. Addition of authorized users to the older adult's bank accounts credit or debit card, items or cash missing from their home. Also, look for suspicious changes in their will or power of attorney, titles and policies of their home ownership or life insurance policy. Also, look for unpaid bills. Or lack of medical care when the older adult should have enough money to pay. Financial activity the older adult could not have done themselves, like an ATM withdrawal, especially when they're bedridden. Utilities are suddenly turned off. And then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, they have a new best friend or a new sweetheart. These are all red flags to look for. Then we have sexual abuse. The definition of sexual abuse is any non-consensual sex contact is considered sexual abuse. That includes touching, fondling, any sexual activity that happens when the person is unable to understand, not willing or consenting, consenting, feeling threatened, or physically forced. And of course, warning signs do include bruises around breasts or genitals, unexplained vaginal or anal bleeding, torn, stained, or bloody underwear. The next category is neglect. And that includes self-neglect. Self-neglect does fall under elder abuse. Conditions. When a caregiver fails to provide or purposely withholds necessities like food, clothing, shelter, medication, medical care, physical assistance, or even providing a safe environment, all of those fall under the category of neglect. But when a person doesn't provide for their own essential needs, That is considered self-neglect. And due to their cognitive impairment, seniors with dementia might not be able to provide warning signs, which include unusual weight loss, malnutrition, and dehydration, unattended medical needs or untreated physical conditions like bedsores, Unsanitary living conditions. You notice dirt, bugs, soiled bedding and clothes. Poor hygiene, being dirty or unbathed. Unsuitable clothing for weather. Unsafe living conditions, such as hoarding, no heat or running water, and fire hazards. And then deserting the older adult in a public place. The last category that they note here is healthcare fraud and abuse. So if a healthcare provider is falsifying patient information for financial gain or not providing proper care, that all is is considered healthcare fraud. And some of the warning signs you can look for are problems in a care community, like poorly trained or too few staff members, resident crowding, not responding to call bells or alarms, or no improvement in care after major issues are brought to staff or administrator attention. Overmedicating or undermedicating. Inadequate care even though the bills are paid in full. Billing for services that were not provided or duplicate billing for the same medical service or device. Billing for a covered service when the service actually provided was not covered. And misrepresenting the service provided. So, what to do if you suspect elder abuse. There are 6 ways to report a problem, and here they are. If you see signs of elder abuse, it's very important, it's critical that you intervene on your older adult's behalf. You may be able to fire and report a hired caregiver or move your older adult, your loved one, out of a neglectful care community, or even prevent an abusive family member from seeing your older adult. Folks, I've been doing this for 30 years. I have seen so much of elder abuse happening, and it can be the most subtle situation, but it's It's still abuse. So when you need help from authorities, there are 6 main options for reporting elder abuse. And to make a report, you don't even need to prove that the abuse is occurring. It's up to the professionals to investigate the suspicions and the things that you are Reporting. So in an emergency situation, call 911 or the local police. They do welfare checks. Number 2, you can call the local Adult Protective Services. And they go by the acronym APS agency. In most states, APS is the primary agency for abuse and neglect reports. Your report will be kept confidential regardless of the outcome. There is a website called the Elder Care Locator, and that's https://eldercare acl.gov. Here's a telephone number that you can call, 800-677-1116. That's 800— 1-800-677-1116. Give you information or a referral to the correct local agency. If your loved one is in an assisted living facility or memory care facility, they are regulated by the state. Every facility should have a telephone number to get in touch with what they call the long-term care ombudsman. And the job of the ombudsman— Ombudsman is to look out, to come into the facility, and with their eyes and their ears wide open, and look for any signs of any of these things going on. And then you can get help with problems in a long-term care community through the ombudsman. And they should have somewhere displayed in the community the telephone number of the local ombudsman. That oversees that particular community. And then lastly, the Alzheimer's Association has a 24/7 hotline number that you can call and, of course, get referrals from them or get assistance or guidance from them. And a telephone number for the Alzheimer's Association, which is www. Alz.org. Their toll-free 800 number is 1-800-272-3900. That again— number again is 1-800-272-3900. And I just wanted to let you know that the information that I just shared with you did come from the website dailycaring.com. And this information was provided by the Daily Caring editorial team. And like I said, I did look at many resources that provided similar information, but I felt that this was the most comprehensive information available with really breaking down the different categories, the explanations of them, and then providing these valuable resources if you ever suspect elder abuse is happening to your loved one or anybody that you happen to notice, especially if they have dementia. So, Here we go. What's new? This is really kind of an update to another episode, content episode that I had done, I think a couple months ago. And this is an update on dementia risk factors. And this particular study finds 11 key factors behind a person's risk for developing Alzheimer's disease or related dementia. So, I wanted to update you on this because it's really interesting. And it's important. So, there is now a predictive tool, significant— significantly outperforms others available and could help avert about 40% of cases. That's huge. And this was written by a gentleman by the name of Andrew Gregory. He's the health editor for a publication called Dementia. So, he notes that scientists have identified 11 risk factors for dementia. And have used them to develop a tool that can actually predict whether someone will develop the condition in the next 14 years. I am so excited about this. The number of people living with dementia globally is forecast to nearly triple to 153 million people by the year 2050. That's only 22 years away. And experts have said that it presents a rapidly growing threat to future health and social care systems. So by targeting these key risk factors, several of which involve lifestyle choices, again, could avert about 40% of the cases. We need that.. And these are the things that people can do. So, a new dementia risk score that draws on 11 mostly modifiable risk factors, and when we say modifiable, that means you can change whatever the situation is, the condition, your choices to lower your risk. This can identify people at risk from midlife onwards of developing the disease within the next 14 years. I have never heard this before I ran across this article. And these findings were published in the open access journal of BMJ Mental Health. The research, which was led by the University of Oxford, examined data on people age 50 to 73 taking part in two large long-term British studies, the UK Biobank Study and the Whitehall Number Two Study. In the UK Biobank Study, 220,762 people with an average age of were examined to develop the risk assessment tool, and 2,934 people with an average age of 57 from the Whitehall II study helped to validate it. Researchers in this study, this is what they did, they compiled a list of 28 known factors that are linked to dementia risk and then identified the strongest predictors. This produced a list of 11 predictive factors, which were then used to develop the UK Biobank dementia risk score.

UKDDRS.

And that acronym is U-K-D-D-R-S. So, the 11 factors are age, a person's education level, a history of having diabetes, a history of depression, a history of stroke, parental history of dementia, levels of deprivation, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, living alone, in other words isolation, and being male. Researchers also examined these risk factors along whether or not people carried the gene, which I've talked about, and called the APOE4 gene. Gene. This is a known risk factor for dementia. So this risk tool was called the UKBDRS-APOE tool. They found that the APOE gene does produce the highest predictive score, closely followed by the generalized UKBDRS risk Tool, which covers all the other predictors that I mentioned. The researchers said that the tool significantly outperformed similar other risk assessments that are currently available. So as well as identifying those at risk, these tools now can also highlight preventive measures that people can take while it is Is still possible. This is to me is an absolute breakthrough. The academics point to previous work that suggests up to 40% of dementia cases could be prevented just by modifying certain lifestyle factors. And some of the examples that they give here is quit smoking, reduce high blood pressure, lose weight, and reduce alcohol intake. Those are all modifiable risk factors. You can change that behavior and lower your risk of developing Alzheimer's disease. The new tool could be used as an initial screening tool for dementia to put people in risk groups, they said. Those who come back with a high probability of developing dementia according to the risk score could be prioritized for further testing, including cognitive assessments, brain scans, and blood tests. This tool may be best— may best be used as an initial screening tool to stratify people into risk groups. And those identified as high risk could then benefit from the more time-intensive follow-up— described above for more detailed characterization, said the lead author, Dr. Rehan Patel from the University of Oxford. And then Associate Professor Sana Suri from the University of Oxford, who was a co-lead author, added, it's important to remember that this risk score only tells us about our chances of developing dementia. It doesn't represent a definitive outcome. The importance of each risk factor varies, and given that some of the risk factors included in the score can be modified or treated, there are things we can all do to help reduce our risk of dementia. So, this just supports the research I've done in the past about risk factors, but it's even more clear now. This is an updated report on risk factors and modifying them to help negate those factors from increasing your risk of developing Alzheimer's disease. And then lastly, it says, while older age, which is 60 and above, and the carrying the APOE4 gene confer the greatest risk, modifiable factors such as diabetes, depression, high blood pressure also have a key role. For example, the estimated risk for a person with all of these will be approximately 3 times higher than that of a person of the same age who doesn't have any of those risk factors. And I've never heard that number before this report. So it's actually your— the more of these risk factors that apply to you individually will give you approximately 3 times higher risk of a person the same age who doesn't have the same risk factors or any of these modifiable risk factors. The non-modifiable risk factors, I've identified those for you before. The number one non-modifiable risk factor to developing Alzheimer's disease is age, and we can't do anything about our age, so that's already one against us. Gender is another non-modifiable risk factor, and females are known to develop dementia more than men. And then you've got the— whether you carry the APOE4 gene. Your ethnicity also is a nonmodifiable risk factor. We can't change our ethnicity, and we know there have been many studies that now show and support that African Americans and Latinos are at a much higher risk of developing Alzheimer's disease than other ethnic background population of people. So, this is really important information that You can choose to heed or not. And even if you're 21 years old today or 35 years old today or 60 years old today, making lifestyle choices can definitely lower your risk of developing Alzheimer's disease starting at age 65. These studies have demonstrated that. So, I think it's important to be aware of this so you can do something now, today. It's never too late to start. With that said, I will now turn the floor back over to my wonderful announcer, Ken, and he has a couple announcements for you, and then I'll come back and just say so long to you for today's episode. Ken?

Thank you for listening to the Truth, Lies Alzheimer's show with your host Lisa Skinner. This program can be found on our website at passionateworldtalkradio.com under the shows tab. You can also search for us on YouTube, and you can find Lisa on Facebook by searching for Lisa Skinner Author. If you're interested in Lisa's books or training programs, Go to TruthLiesAndAlzheimer's.com, and remember that all of her books are available on major bookselling platforms, including Amazon and Apple Books. And with that, I'll turn it back over to Lisa Skinner to say goodbye.

I just wanted to quickly say thanks, everybody, for joining us for another episode of the Truth, Lies Alzheimer's show. We'll be back next week with another new episode. And have a great week, and thanks again for being here. We appreciate it very much. Bye-bye.