Lead, Follow, or Get Out Of The Way!!! Says – “Franchiseboy”!

Be a leader!

You can own your own business.

That means you can decide what you want to do with your life!

Set your schedule to “fit” your family-time!

Do something you want to do, enjoy doing and can be rewarding to you and your financial future!

Have you considered buying a franchise?

There more than 4000 franchise companies and there is a franchise business model that you can own!

Home based, client services, retail, business-to-business and consulting to name a few!

There are tax service, cleaning, home repair, food, exercise, in-home care, auto service, human resources and a host of other categories of businesses that are franchises.

Ask yourself, do I want to be my own boss, set my own schedule and take the profit from my hard work to the bank? If the answer is yes – let’s talk!

Please Help Me, My Mother Needs A Shower & I Don’t Know What to Do!

The call came in at 7:30 PM on a Friday evening.  John said “My mother is visiting for the weekend, and she soiled herself.  I need your help desperately!  She needs a shower and I don’t know what I am going to do, can you please help me.”  John had gone through a long list of Home Care Companies.  John was getting know where, every company he called had a minimum of six to eight hours of care.  John was very surprised when one of the companies he called said sorry we can’t help you, but try calling Always Best Care of Kane County.  John called us and we were able to send our community liaison  to their home to do an assessment on his mother and had a caregiver at their residence within the next couple of hours.  John was so relieved and surprised that we were able to respond so quickly.  John said that he could not be happier with the service we provided for his mother. 

Always Best Care of Kane County is unique from other Home Care Companies in that we offer a 30 minute response time, a minimum of one hour of care, and the owner of ABC personally stops and visits all of our clients at least once a month.

If you need care for your loved one please call Always Best Care of Kane County.  You can reach us at (630) 365-9755 (office),  e-mail us at jtait@abc-seniors.com, or visit our website @ www.alwaysbestcarekanecounty.com.

Elder Financial Abuse – What Are the Signs?

Posted by

Sandra L. Smith

01/28/2011 01:52:00 PM EST

An article by The Edcomm Group describes efforts to educate financial institutions on the role they can play in stopping financial abuse of the elderly. According to the National Center on Elder Abuse, elder financial abuse plagues over two million Americans each year, and it is the number one crime committed against persons age 65 and older. If this abuse continues, this situation will grow significantly as the baby boomer generation ages.

According to Linda Eagle, Ph.D., President of The Edcomm Group, “Just as doctors are often the first to spot the signs of physical abuse, front line bank personnel have the best perspective from which to spot elder financial abuse.” In response to this growing problem, many states have enacted legislation requiring employees at financial institutions to report all suspected cases of elder financial abuse.

According to Dr. Eagle, the following are the top ten signs of which financial institutions should be aware to detect possible elder financial abuse. Seniors and caregivers should also be on the lookout for these signs:

1. Sudden changes in a senior’s bank account or banking practices.
2. Uncharacteristic and unexplained withdrawals of large sums of money by a senior or someone acting under a senior’s power of attorney.
3. Large credit card transactions or checks written to unusual recipients, like salespersons, telemarketers, or “cash.”
4. Abrupt changes in a senior’s will or other financial or estate planning documents; the transfer of a senior’s assets to a family member or acquaintance without a reasonable explanation.
5. Complaints of stolen or misplaced credit cards, valuables, checkbooks, or checks from the Social Security Administration, pensions or annuities.
6. Seniors who appear nervous when accompanied by another individual, or who give far-fetched explanations of why they need money.
7. Sudden increases in debt or inexplicable credit card transactions.
8. A person accompanying a senior who bullies the senior into making a withdrawal, or who does not allow the senior to speak for him or herself.
9. New signatories added to a senior’s account or newly formed joint accounts between a senior and another individual.
10. Possible forged signatures on financial transactions, documents for transfer of assets, or new applications for items like credit cards.

Dr. Eagle also advises, “It’s in the best interest of banks across the country to take an active role in training their employees now because more and more states will likely pass legislation in the near future. Banks that take a proactive role now to train their employees to spot and report elder financial abuse, send a positive message to seniors in the community that ‘our bank is safe and is looking out for your best interests.’”

Virginia Code section 63.2-1606(C) provides that financial institution staff members may voluntarily report suspected financial exploitation. This section states that a financial institution staff member who suspects that an adult has been exploited financially may report the suspected exploitation to the local department of social services of the county or city where the adult resides, or where the exploitation is believed to have occurred, or to the adult protective services hotline. For purposes of this section, a financial institution staff member means any employee of a bank, savings institution, credit union, securities firm, accounting firm, or insurance company.

Oast & Hook advises it clients to be aware of these red flags and to contact an elder law attorney if they suspect financial abuse.

Crimes Against Seniors Increasing with Population Boom

Senior Scam Alert Blog

February 15, 2011

Scott Knowles

Starting January 1st, ten thousand Boomers will turn 65 each day, a trend that will continue for the next 30 years. This aging population will have a strong desire to remain in their homes — in fact 93% indicate this is their preference. This huge influx of people staying in their homes, most of which are in the suburbs, will mean the demand for home services and contractors will be increasing each day. Unfortunately, unscrupulous service providers are taking advantage of this trend. At SeniorChecked, our mission is to reduce these incidences of fraud and make seniors and their adult children aware of the types of crimes that occur. Below are the latest examples of crimes being committed against seniors:

Stuart woman accused of stealing $151,000 from elderly neighbor

IA woman spent more than $151,000 belonging to a 90-year-old man she convinced to let her take over his finances, the Martin County Sheriff’s Office said Friday. Vilet Ruth Weaver, 57, of the 100 block of Southeast Crestwood Circle, Stuart, was charged with elderly exploitation and grand theft from a person 65 years old or older. She was being held at the Martin County Jail in lieu of $200,000 bail. Detectives said Weaver befriended the senior citizen last year at their condominium and gained power of attorney for his accounts within a matter of weeks. Between October 2009 and July, Weaver wrote sizeable checks for jewelry, restaurants, clothing and beauty salon visits for herself and her four daughters, the Sheriff’s Office said … More

Police say ‘condo scam’ suspect duped elderly board members

A probable cause affidavit obtained by NewsChannel 5 suggests a property manager duped two elderly members of condo boards into signing checks for “cash”, bilking the condos out of more than $2 million dollars. 52-year-old Grace Cushman Cromwell was arrested Thursday morning and charged with grand theft, organized scheme to defraud, and several other counts. Cromwell worked for a property management company that managed two condo associations in the town of Palm Beach, Park Place (369 South Lake Drive) and Melbourne House (227 Australian Avenue). The affidavit cites bank records where hundreds of checks, made out to cash, were deposited into personal bank accounts of Cromwell between January 2006 and February 2010 … More

Caregiver pleads guilty to theft, Medicaid fraud

A state-paid caregiver from Ridgefield pleaded guilty Tuesday to stealing from an elderly cerebral palsy patient and wrongfully collecting money from Medicaid. Michelle L. Zabroski, 46, will be sentenced Jan. 27 for two counts of first-degree theft and three counts of making a false Medicaid statement. She reportedly stole about $12,000 from her 70-year-old former client, Dennis Campbell of Vancouver, and $60,000 from the state by clocking hours that she didn’t actually work, prosecutors said. … More

Financial exploitation tops elder abuse list

Elder abuse can manifest itself in a variety of ways, but the most common is financial exploitation, local experts say. About half of the approximately 450 cases Broome County Adult Protective Services sees each year are those in which an elderly person has been taken advantage of financially, said Supervisor John Choynowski. And that number has increased over the past several years. “It’s almost coincided directly with the economic decline,” … More

Police sound warning on rise of scams in region

The request arrived on the fax machine of a Queensbury bank one day earlier this year.
It seemed simple: a local business owner wanted to wire $25,000 from his account to that of another business. The customer’s account number and signature were on the fax. So the bank employee prepared the paperwork, and a short time later, wired the money off as requested. There were a few problems, though. First, the request hadn’t come from the bank customer, but from a Russian scam artist. The thief had found the business owner’s bank account number, and copy of his signature on the Internet, and used it to draft a fake wire transfer request … More

Mild memory loss is not a part of normal aging

Thu, 09/16/2010 – 19:05 – NLN

Simply getting older is not the cause of mild memory lapses often called senior moments, according to a new study by researchers at the Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center.

The study, published in the September 15, 2010, online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, found that even the very early mild changes in memory that are much more common in old age than dementia are caused by the same brain lesions associated with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias.

“The very early mild cognitive changes once thought to be normal aging are really the first signs of progressive dementia, in particular Alzheimer’s disease.” said Robert S.Wilson, PhD, neuropsychologist at Rush University Medical Center. “The pathology in the brain related to Alzheimer’s and other dementias has a much greater impact on memory function in old age than we previously recognized.”

The study involved over 350 nuns, priests and brothers who participated in Rush’s Religious Orders Study and completed up to 13 years of annual cognitive testing. After death, the brains were examined for the lesions associated with dementia: neurofibrillary tangles, cerebral infarction (stroke), and Lewy bodies.

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Researchers looked at the rate of change in cognitive function over time. The last four to five years of life showed a very rapid decline. The preceding years showed a much more gradual decline that would be described as normal aging.

As expected, pathologic lesions were related to the rapid decline, but researchers were somewhat surprised to find the pathology was very strongly predictive of the mild changes in cognitive function.

Higher tangle density adversely affected all forms of cognition at all trajectory points. Both Lewy bodies and stroke approximately doubled the rate of gradual memory decline, and almost no gradual decline was seen in the absence of lesions.

“Our study finds that Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias are the root cause of virtually all loss of cognition and memory in old age. They aren’t the only contributing factors; other factors affect how vulnerable we are to the pathology and to its effects. But the pathology does appear to be the main force that is driving cognitive decline in old age,” said Wilson.

According to Wilson, recognizing that the earliest changes in memory are related to Alzheimer’s pathology can lead to early diagnosis and will be critical information if a treatment is developed that can alter the pathologic course of the disease.