Elderly Welfare

Taking care of our parents when they age and require assistance is a great responsibility, which comes with all sorts of difficulties. Sharing the workload with other family, paying a commercial facility or using Government resources to help care for parents are a few of the main issues. Add to this degrading cognitive abilities and you begin to appreciate how hard it can be to take care of your parents in their twilight years.

Sometimes, adding to these normal difficulties, comes the added burden of abuse, physically and mentally, as well as a high instance of fraud and theft.

These problems are normally associated to family members as the most common perpetrators of abuse and theft of the elderly, as it is with children as well. Sadly, many families do not realize the abuse until it is too late, either due to the perpetrator having trusted access to the parent, or by refusing to see the signs of abuse. The parent conversely cannot speak up, either due to mental or physical disability or due to fear instilled by the caretaker committing these crimes.

Additionally, we see increased victimization at care facilities, where caseworkers see opportunity and use it to steal goods, or use abusive measures in perverted means to discipline the patients. New in the news but not reality, is the increasing focus on patient on patient violence which can occur in situations with dementia patients which can cause great harm to loved ones who are supposed to be safe in the confines of the care facility.

These cases can be difficult to initiate, particularly as the investigation will undoubtedly focus on the family at some point, but the process itself is usually solvable in a relatively short period once the investigation has commenced, providing you with the evidence needed to pursue litigation or criminal actions.

Call a local private investigator to see how they can help, or just to bounce some ideas off of them on your best course of action.

Blog post is courtesy Elemental Investigations: Private Investigator Edmonton, an Edmonton, Canada based private investigator agency. They can be found online at www.elementalpi.ca