EPISODE 48 – Elder Abuse: How to Spot It, Stop It, and Who to Call

Elder abuse is more common than most people realize, and it often starts closer to home than you'd expect. In this episode, Jamie sits down with Scott Bucy, a specialist elder law attorney serving Southern Oregon, to break down what elder abuse actually looks like, how to spot it, and what you can do about it.

Scott and Jamie dive into the many forms elder abuse can take, why seniors are particularly vulnerable, and why the people most likely to cause harm are often the ones the elder trusts most. They also share real case stories that illustrate just how complicated these situations can get, and why there's rarely a single agency or simple fix.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• What legally qualifies as elder abuse, and why it exists on a spectrum
• The difference between physical, financial, emotional, and self-neglect
• Why Adult Protective Services is a tool, not a solution, and what they can and can't do
• How to make an anonymous report and why you should, even if you're not sure
• Who is a mandatory reporter and what that means for your loved one's care team
• What a Nomination of Guardianship and Conservatorship is and why it matters
• What to do when APS investigates and finds nothing — but you know something is wrong

If you or someone you love is in a complicated situation involving a vulnerable elder, this episode is a reminder to keep making phone calls, keep building your network, and never give up. Team Senior is just a call away at 541-295-8230.

At Team Senior™, our mission is to guide you and support you through the maze of Southern Oregon Long-Term Care.

📞 For Team Senior resources, call: 541-295-8230

Or visit our website for more information: https://www.teamsenior.org/

Transcript

Episode 48: Elder Abuse with Scott Bucy, Elder Law Attorney

Team Senior Podcast

JAMIE: Hi, this is Jamie Callahan with the Team Senior Podcast. Our goal is to simplify aging. Society grooms us to plan for retirement, but what about life beyond retirement — where the rubber meets the road? Perhaps you've had a stroke, or you've been diagnosed with cancer, or maybe you're forgetting things and now you have dementia. That's our area of expertise, and we are here to share our insight. And now, the Team Senior Podcast.

JAMIE: Hi, this is Jamie, and I am in the studio again today with Scott Bucy. I'm always so happy to have a conversation with him because he is an expert on many topics. He's an attorney. Scott, tell us a little bit about yourself.

SCOTT: Hi, Jamie. First of all, thank you for having me. I appreciate the service you provide to Southern Oregon and the state of Oregon — it's an incredible service and we're very grateful to have you. I'm a specialist elder law attorney. I've been in the state of Oregon for approximately nine years. Prior to moving here, I was in Vail, Colorado for 22 years. My specialty is trusts, wills, and estate plans, as well as elder care, guardianship, and conservatorship. I do dabble a little in business as well, primarily to help out estate planning clients.

JAMIE: Nice. So let's dive right into it. We are here today to talk about elder abuse, and I'm going to have a lot of questions for you because we come across this all the time. Explain first what legally qualifies as elder abuse.

SCOTT: That's a very broad stroke of the brush right there. It's typically some kind of physical or financial abuse — different ways that people are being scammed out of something, perhaps physically harmed in some way, or maybe emotionally harmed. And oftentimes it starts out slow and builds over the course of time. I can't give you a black-and-white answer on exactly what elder abuse is — that's the court's job — but it is determined on a scale. It essentially comes down to whether something is being done with malicious intent to harm the elder person in any way, shape, or form.

JAMIE: Absolutely. And we see all kinds. You mentioned physical and financial, but we also see emotional abuse, forms of neglect, and sometimes even self-neglect, which can be considered elder abuse.

SCOTT: Abandonment, too.

JAMIE: Abandonment, yes. Several things. When someone first suspects that elder abuse may be happening, what is your advice? What do you tell them to do first?

SCOTT: I would advise them to call Adult Protective Services first. APS is limited in what they can do — they can't take court action, they're not going to file for guardianship or conservatorship for the protected person — but their primary job is investigation, and their primary goal is safety. If it's a family member or even a neighbor that you know, I would also advise that person to try to gather as much information as they can, while recognizing that digging in too deeply could potentially put the person in harm's way, depending on the circumstances.

JAMIE: And we see all different types — not just those four examples. We see it where an adult child, for example, doesn't actually see what they're doing as a form of elder abuse. An example would be: a daughter is living with mom, mom has some cognitive issues, and the daughter is managing mom's money and paying for both mom's cell phone and her own out of mom's finances. It seems small and not a big deal, but once this is on somebody's radar, that is actually a form of elder abuse.

SCOTT: Absolutely. It's essentially taking advantage of someone for your own self-benefit to the harm of the other person. Now, it's one thing if mom has enough money to do that and mom had the cognitive ability to approve it — you can't tell mom what to do with her money if she has the capacity and the finances to do so. But if mom's mental capacity is declining, as in your hypothetical, then yes, that can be considered elder abuse. And unfortunately, elder abuse is often committed by the people the elder trusts most. That's why it typically starts out slow and then just builds. Maybe the daughter is just getting her cell phone bill paid at first, but then she's getting grocery money, then a car payment, and these things build upon each other until mom has no money left. And then there are consequences.

JAMIE: There are so many ways that adult children — who tend to be the most trusted — justify the decisions that led them there. I was actually just talking with a woman the other day who shared that her dad has significant needs and requires transportation to doctor's appointments. She wanted to access the $20,000 in his account to buy him a car so she could provide that transportation, since she's the only one he can lean on. And she wanted him to qualify for Medicaid. I told her to call DHS and walk that scenario by them, because I'm pretty sure that's not going to fly.

SCOTT: Yeah, it wouldn't fly.

JAMIE: So I know that elder abuse can be very difficult for families to detect early. What makes seniors so vulnerable?

SCOTT: One of the things we already alluded to is the trust factor. Oftentimes it's the person the elder trusts most. And as cognitive abilities decline, they believe this loved one is helping them and acting in their best interest — they can't see outside of that. And then it just builds upon itself. I think that's the primary factor.

JAMIE: Absolutely. So let's break it down a little further. Starting with physical abuse — what should families be looking for?

SCOTT: With physical abuse, maybe the obvious first: physical changes like bruises or scratches. But also the person becoming more timid, or not wanting to see a specific person they've had a relationship with for a long time. Those are signs. It's not determinative — there could be a multitude of other reasons — but you need to look for those cues, look for those signs, communicate, and ask the 'why' question if something seems out of the ordinary for the person you know and love.

JAMIE: And knowing that there are people you can talk to. Sometimes it doesn't immediately result in criminal charges. We've helped three or four different families over the last ten years where the wife was being physically threatened by her husband — and it was a direct result of dementia. It was not typical behavior for him, and because of that, she was very protective of him. In almost all of those scenarios, the spouse was protective. There are a lot of creative solutions around that. You'll find pretty quickly that if you call 911, they might take him to the hospital, but they have no reason to hold him — so he's coming home. However, there are other options. If he needs memory care and refuses to go, and you don't have guardianship or conservatorship in place yet, we might help the person being harmed check into a hotel or move into independent living to create some separation while we work things out on the back end.

SCOTT: Absolutely. There are a lot of creative options that can come into play. It's not necessarily going to be: APS gets involved, criminal charges are filed, and the husband you've loved for 50 years — who is now a completely different person due to dementia — is going to prison. That's not going to happen.

JAMIE: Right. APS is a tool — that's all it is. APS is not going to solve the problem. Their job is to investigate. If elder abuse is suspected, you'd then want to reach out to an attorney who can investigate further. APS will be that investigatory tool from the government side, focused on safety. They're not going to advocate for the family or for what the family believes is best — they're going to investigate and make sure the person is safe.

SCOTT: Exactly.

JAMIE: And it should be noted that APS does not use names in their reports, and you can make anonymous reports to Adult Protective Services. We always advise calling it in even if you're just suspicious — they're not going to do anything rash. I hear all the time from neighbors or nephews: 'I don't want to upset my grandma' or 'I don't want to make waves with my neighbors.' Just make the phone call. They do not have to disclose where it came from. And I can almost guarantee that if you're noticing it, other people are noticing it too. On that note, there are also mandatory reporters. Attorneys are mandatory reporters. Medical professionals are mandatory reporters. If they know or suspect elder abuse, they are legally required to report it — their licenses are on the line. Teachers are mandatory reporters as well, even outside their classroom. So be aware of that. And that's not a bad thing — that's a good thing.

JAMIE: What do you recommend when APS has completed an investigation and found nothing, but we still believe strongly that abuse is happening?

SCOTT: Number one: get more involved in that person's life. If they're in a care facility, you can contact the ombudsman — that's a government-run role where someone will come in and actually advocate for the protected person. You could also pursue guardianship or conservatorship so you have more access to what's going on and can communicate with the people around that person. Try to remove them from the situation as best as possible. Keep gathering evidence, because if APS didn't find anything and you're convinced something is there, keep doing what you can to keep the person safe and then continue down that road. You can always call APS back.

JAMIE: I want to reassure people that there are lots of different ways to strategically approach this. We have worked on wildly complicated cases — and it gets especially complex when the person being abused does not have a dementia diagnosis, because it's often ruled that they have the capacity to give away their money or make those decisions. We worked on a case years ago involving Adult Protective Services, the fire department, a fiduciary, and our own attorney — all trying to make sure the situation was handled correctly. It involved a woman living in a rural area whose caregiver had worked her way into every aspect of her life, getting onto all the bank accounts and spending the social security income directly. To make it more difficult, the woman had no dementia diagnosis and it was very hard to work with her — two days after any organization visited, she'd be accusing them of stealing. APS was constantly involved and aware, but because there was no dementia diagnosis, they kept ruling that she had the cognitive capacity to do whatever she wanted. Long story short: she eventually had to put her house on the market, and we were horrified knowing that the sale proceeds would likely go straight into the account the caregiver had access to. It took a literal village — the attorney, the fiduciary, and APS working together — to open a new bank account for her, redirect her Social Security deposits, and ensure that the proceeds from the home sale went into an account the caregiver could not access.

SCOTT: These are incredibly complicated cases. There's no single agency that's going to solve all the problems — it doesn't work that way. They all have to work together. You need an attorney to come in and push things through the court, and APS to investigate and ensure safety. There's no one solution. The best approach is to have all of these people in place — alongside estate planning — so you can prepare in advance. There is a legal document called a Nomination of Guardianship and Conservatorship, which is where mom would sign off and say: if I ever reach a point where I can't manage my own affairs, this is who I would want in charge. That person can then step in and make decisions — including freezing accounts and preventing unauthorized spending. It doesn't mean mom couldn't petition the court, but it can at least stop some of the bleeding. These situations have a lot of moving parts and a lot of different avenues, and sometimes the bright side is that there may be more than one solution depending on the direction you go.

JAMIE: And I think that's really what I want people to hear today: if you hit a roadblock with one entity, don't give up. Keep making phone calls. There are a lot of people who can help, and sometimes it just takes getting the right person on the line. I hear that all the time — 'I've talked to ten other people and you're the first one who gave me real information.' We are available. Lots of people are available. Keep calling until you get someone who will help you.

SCOTT: Communication. That's it. You have to reach out. It takes a village, as you said. And it is such a wise thing — as we're all getting older, which is inevitable — to try to build that network now. If you do find yourself or your parents or grandparents in that situation later, there's already something in place. Often, when that network exists, these things get caught earlier. When it's not there, things blow up. I've seen numerous cases where a little bit of planning goes a very long way.

JAMIE: That perspective really stands out. Scott, is there anything else you'd want people to know on the topic of elder abuse?

SCOTT: Communicate. That's it. One of the reasons I do what I do is my father — born in 1928 — he didn't talk about a lot of things. Money, family problems, any of it — swept under the rug. Even though I was an attorney, it was just not something he talked about. He passed 21 years ago, and even before that, his attitude was: 'You're the lawyer — tell me where to sign; I don't need to know what it says.' That is the wrong approach. You need to communicate. You need to make sure that your attorney, your caregivers, anyone you're working with — that they're explaining things to you and that you actually understand what's going on. I experienced that in my own life, and it's one of the reasons I do this work. I'm passionate about it. I saw how that affected my family. I saw what my dad should have done and didn't do, and what could have made things better — not only for the family, but for him. Refusing to communicate with those you know and love and failing to set up those networks — it was a hard lesson learned. Talk about these things. Our culture doesn't always encourage it, but it is truly critical that we do.

JAMIE: Absolutely. Scott, thank you so much for being here today. I feel blessed that I get to work with you on a semi-regular basis. I love what you do, I love your heart, I know what your mission is, and I'm very grateful.

SCOTT: Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate your time and energy.

JAMIE: Thank you for listening to the Team Senior Podcast. We're here every week sharing new and relevant information. Remember, we're just a phone call away. Team Senior can be reached at 541-295-8230. Again, that's 541-295-8230. Until next time, this is Jamie Callahan.