The Elderly Are Not Children
So how come abuse laws treat them that way?
Stressed care givers are the most likely abusers. The first wave of research suggested that it was usually well-meaning family members who hit older relatives when care giving became difficult, say in the case of a person with dementia. This echoed theories that child abuse resulted from stress on the parents. New studies, however, debunk this. According to Rosalie Wolf of the National Committee for the Prevention of Elder Abuse, abusers of older people tend to be relatives or acquaintances with their own histories of problems such as mental illness and alcoholism. Douglas Kaplan, the public guardian for Yolo County, Calif., says a growing group of offenders is children and relatives who take money to support drug habits.
So far, the national ferment over elder abuse has not adequately addressed the painful questions that plague many families. For instance, when is it appropriate to intervene to protect an older person from the ravages of old age? And how can the rights of the elderly be most strongly preserved even as that intervention is considered? Five years ago, the Associated Press ran a seminal series of articles that showed almost anyone could get guardianship over a troubled aging person. In some states, the aged had virtually no standing in guardianship decisions and sometimes lost the right to vote, drive a car, control finances and make other basic decisions. Since then, recommendations by the American Bar Association prompted almost every state to tighten control of guardianship decisions.
But courts often cannot afford to hire the investigators needed to make the new laws work. Irene Rausch, a private guardian in Pinellas County, Fla., notes that the probate court there has only one investigator to check on 3,000 wards. To Denver Probate Judge Field Benton--whose court is so strapped that he no longer can hire a bailiff--the solution came from the American Association of Retired Persons, which recruited its members as volunteer monitors in that city, as well as in Houston and Atlanta. The need for better monitoring becomes more pressing, notes Michael Casasanto, former president of the National Guardianship Association, as guardians grapple with such newly complicated decisions as when to withdraw life-support machines from the terminally ill.
One highly publicized case that illustrates why elder abuse is rarely as black and white as child abuse has been front-page news in Boston for months. The stories have focused on Kevin Fitzgerald, a rising-star politician with a reputation as a reformer, and his relationship with an elderly constituent named Mary Guzelian. Fitzgerald, a state legislator, and his aide Patricia McDermott met Guzelian in 1981, when she sought their help to avoid eviction from her apartment. At the apartment, they found general filth--plus 11 plastic bags stuffed with cash. Within 16 days, a court appointed McDermott conservator--with power to make decisions for Guzelian--and a will was drafted. Fitzgerald and McDermott helped her buy a new apartment; Guzelian eschewed it, choosing instead to live on the streets and beg for money. When she was struck and killed by a taxi in 1985, Fitzgerald and McDermott inherited her $500,000 estate.
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