6 WAYS TO AVOID SENIOR SCAMS AND FRAUDS
Senior Scams on the Rise – My Article from Sixty and Me
In the U.S., victims of elder financial abuse can lose a cumulative sum of about $3 billion a year, according to Bob Blancato, head of the Elder Justice Coalition and expert in the Caregiver Smile Summit.
And guess what? That is a low estimate. Another study reveals up to $36 billion in losses. As the population of aging people grows so does senior scams, fraud and abuse.
For every case that is reported, up to five go unreported according to Blancato. The Justice Department states that one out of every 10 people in the U.S. is the victim of some sort of elder abuse or senior scams.
Environmental Distractions Can Impair Memory in Older Adults
RANDI MARTIN (Photo credit: Jeff Fitlow)Environmental Distractions Can Impair Memory in Older Adults
Older people are nearly twice as likely to have their memory and cognitive processes impaired by environmental distractions (such as irrelevant speech or written words presented along with target stimuli), according to a new study from psychologists at Rice University and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Cognitive Declines in Healthy Aging: Evidence from Multiple Aspects of Interference Resolution appeared in Psychology and Aging. The study supported previous research that showed memory accuracy and the speed of cognitive processing declines with age. It also revealed that older people were at least twice as likely as younger to have irrelevant memories intrude during memory recall and also showed twice as much slowing in cognitive processing in the presence of distracting information in the environment.
The study included 102 people between the ages of 18 and 32 (average age of 21) and 60 people between the ages of 64 and 82 (average age of 71) who participated in a series of memory and cognitive tasks. For example, when the participants were tested on remembering lists of words, individuals in the young test group remembered words on the list with an average accuracy of 81 percent; in comparison, the old test group’s accuracy was only 67 percent. When irrelevant words were introduced that were to be ignored, the young test group’s accuracy dropped to 74 percent, but the accuracy of the old test group’s performance dropped to 46 percent.
Almost any type of memory test administered reveals a decline in memory from the age of 25 on, said Randi Martin, the Elma W. Schneider Professor of Psychology at Rice and the study’s co-author. However, this is the first study to convincingly demonstrate the impact of environmental interference on processing having a greater impact on older than younger adults. Martin hopes that the research will encourage further research of how the brain is affected by environmental distractions.
The tests used in this study are important tools in determining how the brain is affected by environmental interference, which is critical information in treating neurological disorders, including stroke and traumatic brain injuries.
Preventing Depression from Age-related Vision Loss
Preventing Depression from Age-related Vision Loss Depression is a common risk for people who have lost their vision from age-related macular degeneration (AMD), but a study shows that a type of rehabilitation therapy can cut this risk in half.
The study was funded by the National Eye Institute (NEI), part of the National Institutes of Health. Activities that used to be fun and fulfilling may begin to seem burdensome or even impossible. With loss of the ability to drive and navigate unfamiliar places, it becomes easier to stay at home than to see friends or meet new people. All of this can take a toll on mental health, and past studies have found that as many as one-third of people with bilateral AMD develop clinical depression.
Barry Rovner, M.D., a professor of psychiatry and neurology at the Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia led the study. Behavior activation involves helping people to focus on activities they enjoy, to recognize that loss of those activities can lead to depression, and to re-engage in those activities, said Robin Casten, Ph.D., a co-author and an associate professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Jefferson.
Helping people maintain an active social life is an important part of the approach, she said.
They studied 188 participants, 84 years of age on average, 70 percent women, of which 50 percent lived alone. Each participant had mild depressive symptoms and was at risk for developing clinical depression. During the trial, the participants had two visits with an optometrist, during which they were prescribed low-vision devices such as handheld magnifiers. After those initial visits, the participants were randomly split into two groups. One group received behavior activation from an occupational therapist specially trained in the approach. The occupational therapist worked with participants to guide them on using the low-vision devices, to make changes around the home (such as using brighter lights and high-contrast tape), to increase their social activities, and to help them set personal goals and break these down into manageable steps. The second group of participants served as a control group.
They talked about their difficulties to a therapist, but did not receive behavior activation or low-vision occupational therapy. By four months, 12 participants in the control group and seven participants in the behavior activation group had withdrawn from the trial or passed away. Of the remaining 169 participants, 18 (23.4 percent) in the control group and 11 (12.6 percent) in the behavior activation group developed clinical depression. Behavior activation had the most benefit for participants with the worst vision, reducing the risk of depression by about 60 percent compared to controls. Stronger links between primary eye care and mental health care workers would be needed to make behavior activation more widely available for AMD patients,Dr. Rovner said.
