Afro Asian Business Chronicle

Tan Ee Lvn from Hong Kong

Thin, frail and slightly demented, 83-year-old Yuk Po approached social workers for help after learning that her daughter had invested her lifesavings in Lehman Brothers' minibonds, the notorious financial instruments that went bust in late 2008.

When the social workers made their checks, they confirmed the old woman was indeed penniless but not among the list of Lehman creditors in Hong Kong. Simply put, she had been cheated of around HK$500,000 (US$64,000) by her own daughter.

"It's up to her if she wants to cheat me. What can I do? I have to depend on her," Yuk said with a blank stare in her small, sparsely-furnished rented government flat.

Most of her belongings, including her bed and wardrobe, were donated. In her kitchen were scraps of leftovers, half-finished bowls of rice that she was planning to eat for dinner. Yuk's plight is far from uncommon.

With Asia's ageing population and the rising prevalence of dementia, fraud committed against the elderly - often by family members and friends - is growing, social workers say.

Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of dementia and affects 10% of those over 70 and 30% of those over 80. It robs people of their memory, thinking, judgement, language and behaviour, leaving them unable to manage their own affairs and vulnerable to abuse.

"We come across cases so often of children removing money from an old person's bank account and the old person complains to us, saying the son or daughter had removed their money, or borrowed their money and never returned it," said Foo Wai-lok of the Association Against Elderly Abuse in Hong Kong.

Foo's colleague Roy Lam added: "We are now handling a case, where the son told the mother to sign a document a few years ago giving him the power-of-attorney on a flat she owned." "Now, a few years later, the son has stopped supporting the mother and when she tried to get rent earned from the property, she found out she had passed the ownership to her son."

FEATURE OF DEVELOPED SOCIETIES?

Such elderly abuse in Asia appears to be more keenly felt in developed societies such as Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan. "Before, people were more traditional and there was more respect for elderly people. Now, they are less tightly-knit, people no longer observe traditions as strongly and there is less respect for the elderly," Foo said.

"There is now more psychological and financial abuse due to a loss of traditional culture." David Dai of the Hong Kong Alzheimer's Disease Association said: "In richer societies, there is an increasing trend of disputes. There are plenty of people with assets who die intestate. Because there is no one to execute their will, they (family members) take it to guardianship." "In developing countries ... they are more traditional and united and they look after their old. There are less medical interventions to keep people alive and they are less litigious." In Singapore, growing disputes and fraud involving assets of elderly people with Alzheimer's disease became serious enough for parliament to enact a "Mental Capacity Act" in 2008, much like the one Britain created in 2005.

MOST SUFFER IN SILENCE

While these various forms of legal protection are slowly becoming available, experts say they are underused as people are generally ignorant about them due to insufficient publicity. In 2010, social workers in Hong Kong received more than 2,185 requests for help from elderly people. Of these, 1,182 involved assets being stolen, up 40% compared to 2009.

Anita Wong, elderly services director of the Hong Kong Chinese Women's Club, says more than half of elderly abuse cases involve victims suffering from mental deterioration.

Source:Reuters