Part 1
At old age, people are likely to take advantage of an individual, especially with their wealth and resources. Older people crave love and care and when shown such by a family member or close individual, they trust easily, increasing the chances of financial abuse. Financial elder abuse deals with misappropriation of the resources, especially the finances of an older person, using trust relationships established and causing harm to the elderly. The problem can be identified with radical changes to the final will and testament or other financial documents (Gilhooly et al., 2018). Most relatives are responsible for these acts of abuse, hoping to inherit the finances of the elderly after their demise.
In Louisiana, there are laws aimed at protecting the elderly from financial abuse. Older American Acts protect the elderly against any type of abuse (Irwin, 2016). On identification of a case of financial elder abuse, the law recognizes a mandated reporter. As a nurse, I will help the patient by reporting and assisting in the process so that the patient may get justice and protection to the Louisiana Department of Health, which guides next steps of establishing how the elderly were defrauded and how their wealth can be protected. The Cabinet for Health and family services also handles cases of financial elderly abuse.
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There are various resources in Louisiana, Kentucky has resources useful in identifying and helping to stop financial elderly abuse. There is a law firm which has adopted ‘Louisiana Laws for the Elderly’ that helps fight for their rights (Carter, 2019). They solve issues like protecting their properties, detecting and preventing elderly abuse, and resolving related family issues. Nursing homes are resources where the elderly are kept and protected against being defrauded by family members. The Federal Trade Commission is a resource that helps identify phone scams, identity theft, and scam alerts involving an older individual. The Louisiana Postal Service Inspection Service is also useful in establishing when changes such as postal code for an elderly person are changed.
On identification of an elderly passing through financial abuse in the clinical setting, as a practitioner nurse, I would first report the issue to the Department of Health. The Second step would be recommending a nursing home for the elderly as the financial fraud case is being investigated. Checking up on such elderly and showing them love would help ease the pain of being defrauded by someone they trusted.
PART 2
In my nursing practice, I encounter elderly patients from diverse ethnic groups, religions, regional, and generations. I have observed different cultures, with each elderly patient having different beliefs, such as who should inherit their wealth and property once they are gone. I have seen some elderly choosing to leave everything to their male children, yet the female children are the ones looking after such individuals. In such cases, the female children get angry and are tempted to take advantage of their elderly parents, ending up misappropriating their funds. It is seen in cases of increasing the hospital bill intentionally so that the elderly can give large amounts of money to the trusted individual to pay for hospital bills, only to pay less and keep the rest. Some elderly patients are too trusting, and when they are shown love and care by the immediate family member, they easily sign the power of attorney to such individuals (Reinke et al., 2018). The type of abuse can be noted when the person who has a power of attorney makes all the decisions, including confining the older adult in a nursing home, yet the older person has enough resources to afford a comfortable lifestyle at home.
The culture of an individual determines their beliefs and acceptance about some practices. Some patients may not be willing to stay in nursing homes, even when they are being defrauded as they believe that it is wrong. Other elderly patients may not accept to take the funds' misappropriation problem to court as they fear causing havoc in their families (Wajnberg et al., 2020). Some patients may be old and senile and may not recognize that they are being financially abused, thus making it hard to use available resources in Louisiana to assist them.
References
Carter, E. R. (2019). Fiduciary Litigation in Louisiana: Mandataries, Succession Representatives, and Trustees. Louisiana Law Review, Forthcoming .
Gilhooly, M., Kinnear, D., Davies, M., Gilhooly, K., & Harries, P. (2018). Financial elder abuse. The new dynamics of ageing, 2, 51.
Irwin, E. (2016). Protecting Mamaw and Her Estate: Elder Abuse Disinheritance in Kentucky. U. Louisville L. Rev., 54, 307.
Reinke, L. F., Hendricksen, M., & Lynn, J. (2018). Care Plan Standardization for Older Adults: Opportunities for Nursing Leadership. Journal of gerontological nursing, 44(12), 11-16.
Wajnberg, A., Koppel, S., & Kahan, F. (2020). Elder Abuse and Neglect. In Home-Based Medical Care for Older Adults (pp. 41-47). Springer, Cham.
