Thanks to advances in healthcare and medicine, people are living longer and healthier lives than ever before. The average expected lifespan for a human is now 70 to 80 years!
This has fundamentally changed how society and culture are, resulting in less children per person in developed nations as the survival rates of infants and children skyrocketed.
In first world countries such as Japan and Germany, the number of elderly far outstrip the younger generation – a trend that will not see a reversal anytime soon.
Of course, with old age comes the difficulty of maintaining one’s mental faculties.
Already it can be hard staying on top of bills and the like when we are young and in good health – when one’s mental and physical health starts deteriorating, all this workload becomes a lot harder.
In the end, these elderly people will end up having to rely on their caretakers – usually their children.
Unfortunately, this leads to plenty of abuse. There are far too many stories on the internet about how the caretaker or the children of an aging parent treating them horribly.
Abuse happens in many different settings and relationships, and unfortunately, the elderly are incredibly vulnerable to abuse.
Ageism seems to render people around an old person to become impatient or hurtful, often at the expense and distress of the poor senior.
There are many different types of abuse, but elderly abuse often comes in the form of financial abuse.
This is the case where a person who has been trusted to manage a senior’s finances takes advantage of their position to strip their charge of their savings.
In these cases, the funds that were set aside for the aging parent’s wellbeing and care often end up being misused without the elderly person’s consent or knowledge.
This sadly happens because the senior often has poor mental faculties, and is unable to reassert any sort of control.
When a caretaker or the senior’s children realise that the elderly person’s grip on their personal finances is no longer as secure, they will try to tease out as much money as they can from the senior.
Such poor mental faculties also render them vulnerable to phone or internet scams.
Already, people who are in their 30s or older can find technologies such as the internet confusing enough.
Even without impaired thinking skills, the average senior can be easily overwhelmed and tricked into giving away precious financial information.
This is because knowledge and awareness regarding technology and the harms that arise from it are often information that the elderly has trouble accessing or isn’t privy to.
After all, if you struggle to know how to open a web browser and create your email, it is hard to expect you to know what to be wary of.
This sort of abuse often leaves aging parents abandoned and uncared for.
Often they are helpless, and struggle to be able to keep on top of any regular bills they may have. They may even struggle to maintain basic hygiene for themselves.
It is heartbreaking that people will take advantage of such a vulnerable group of people in their golden years.
Hopefully awareness over how often this situation occurs may help people keep a lookout for such abuse.
SEE ALSO:
Hidden Camera Captures Elderly Abuse That Horrifies Victim’s Daughters
