This research a few years ago suggests that neurological changes make the elderly more vulnerable. They don't pick up on the visual cues that a younger person might see.

I "researched" the political organizations & found that lot of them were same person who had 1 lobbyist who was her daughter, she raked in over 1 million dollars on each of these scams. I printed it out & that was end of mom giving any more money "to save Social security" or change the "notch babies" scary thing is apparently nothing illegal about this type of scam. Guess it's" buyer" beware

Charity .org can help find the ones that give almost nothing to causes like veterans & will help steer elderly to the ones that actually do help people if your loved ones have plenty of money & wish to donate.

They seem to hit alot on seniors knowing they are lonely and know thebuttons to push and unfortunately one of them is buy magazines and win big and so they buy and buy magazines but don't win of course but spending huge amount of money. There are times you must take over and I like the idea you get the power of attorney and take control of the money and give them allowance, as long as they can play and do what they like some, then let them. And don't go threatening to them either as that really puts their back up bad, they change like someone said and they do need reminders about things.

The last nanny job I had found out the grandmother told me she didn't have money for food due to making long distance phone calls all the time. I did tell finally and the mom was so happy to know that and she and her brother and a friend of hers had started up this once a month cooking meals and so what she did was her mother helped looked after her son when they did those days of cooking and she also went to store when they found they needed something and plus cleaned all the pots and pans,etc. and kept the kitchen decent. And told her in return she would be given meals to take home and plus she invited her mother over for suppers lots of times and fed her.

So, think that way and maybe something can happen for her to not to spending all her money. I like the allowance, get power of attorney and through a lawyer and then see what she is paying out and is she even paying her bills and if you can innocently check cupboards out if she has food in them or fridge and freezer.

Health, does she have enough money to buy what is needed as so many elderly take alot of medications.

if she doesn't then take over and pay the bills and make sure even if you have to take her grocery shopping and help cook meals for her to see that she is eating.

Something has to be done for sure, just how to do it, they will be furious for sure but keeping them safe is a must.

A friend was scammed this summer and the kids had to go to court and take control . She is furious with everyone at this point. So tragic, as she does have beginning dementia.

When visiting my Mom last week (pretty sure she's Stage 3 dementia currently), that fake Microsoft Security Alert pop-up made it past her Norton Anti-Virus. She had her hand on the phone to call the 1-800 number on the pop-up (where she would have been told that her computer is in dire straights and, with her credit card payment of $299, they could fix it all for her).

I showed her how to get rid of the pop-up with the Task Manager, but she won't remember.

Scary stuff.

Jewelsisfabulous....that is what happened to my friend last year, but I think they called her and she fell for it. She gave them her debit card number. This year it was sweepstakes that really got her in big trouble. She is 80.

Wow. I am counting on there being a God for many reasons, but a big one is that so He can hand down some wicked judgment on the depraved jerks who prey on people like that. Did your friend decide she needed help so she didn't fall for this stuff again?

Unfortunately her kids had to go to court to get control. she lost a large sum of money and I doubt if she will ever get control of her assets again. She is fighting it and believes the family is just trying to take her money. It is hard to discuss anything with her and she just gets mad when told they are doing it for her own good.

<she just gets mad when told they are doing it for her own good.>

I hope that whatever part of her brain malfunctioned when she was scammed out of the money will soon malfunction and let her forget her anger. It'd be awful for her kids to go to all the effort to protect her money for her benefit and have her mad at them about it.

A lot of people leap to the Alzheimers conclusion in these situations. The thing is, normal working adults have a lot of context and feedback to keep us sane. We go out to work and see the streets aren't the wasteland 24 Hour Cable News tells us they are, we talk to friends and coworkers who tell us when we are acting stupid. There are oodles of scientific studies showing exercise prevents depression, and many people get depressed when they aren't exposed to sunlight.

Now think what things are like for the elderly shut-in. Lots of people go a little crazy if left alone wit their thoughts to long. People lose the context they need to evaluate how many grains of salt you need to take that 24 hour news station with. They often lose their social support system. It shouldn't be surprising that sometimes they end up showing what we think of as "poor judgment".

If the elderly person DOESN'T have dementia, it's hard to intervene if they do something self destructive but don't cooperate.