By Noah Gilbert and Scott Cacciola | The New York Times | June 11, 2014

LOS ANGELES — He did not know what season it was. He could not remember two objects after three minutes. He had difficulty drawing a clock.

A Los Angeles doctor described Donald Sterling, the embattled owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, as “unable to reasonably carry out the duties of trustee,” according to legal documents filed Wednesday by Sterling’s estranged wife, Rochelle.

Donald Sterling’s lawyers disputed that characterization, maintaining that “he has all of his capacities about him” and that he should not be stripped of his control of the Clippers. Continue reading »

High-profile schemes to defraud the elderly of their lifetime savings have headlined top newspapers and tabloids alike. There was Brooke Astor, whose son and attorney were convicted of criminal fraud, Anna Nicole Smith and the fight over J. Edgar Marshall’s inheritance, and Huguette Clark, a multi-billionaire who lived for years in a hospital and whose death prompted a criminal investigation into her donations and inheritance. Unfortunately, these notorious cases are merely the tip of a vast and growing iceberg of financial fraud against the elderly. In 2011, Metlife Mature Market Institute estimated an annual loss of $2.9 billion in fraud against elders. Recent surveys indicate that more than 7.3 million Americans over 65 have been victims of financial fraud. As crime rates — and vulnerable populations — increase, the scientific and legal communities must pool our ever-increasing knowledge and resources to protect elderly family members.

Read the full article on the Huffington Post, published February 21, 2014. By Bruce H. Price, MD and Ekaterina Pivovarova, PhD. Written with Judith G. Edersheim, JD, MD.

For further resources on elder fraud and decision making, see the reference materials from our December 2013 event Capacity, Decision-Making and the Elderly: Brain Science Meets the Law, and follow-up article in the Boston Globe “Scammers take aim at aging population,” by event moderator and Globe reporter Kay Lazar.

By Erika Hayasaki | The Atlantic | January 9, 2014

While Alzheimer’s usually affects older people, and is detected as a person begins to lose memory, frontotemporal dementia causes people to lose their personalities first, and usually hits in the prime of their lives — the 30s, 40s, and 50s.

Over the last decade, new research in patients with frontotemporal dementia and other illnesses, has helped neuroscientists understand more about the roles different parts of the brain play in where our personalities come from.

A study released in October by Dr. Brad Dickerson, [Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett,] and colleagues at Harvard Medical School in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry pinpointed regions in the brain that showed atrophy from frontotemporal dementia and found that those with the most damage to the “perception network” (amygdala, orbitofrontal cortex, superior temporal, and fusiform cortex) also showed the most prominent difficulty responding to social cues, facial expressions, and eye gaze, and had the most trouble interpreting gestures and body language—the kind of cues that sarcasm relies on.

Read the full article at The Atlantic Monthly.

Elder financial abuse
Researchers analyzed media reports from April through June 2010, and pinpointed 314 unduplicated reports of elder financial abuse that included detailed information. Source Metlife Study on Elder Financial Abuse. Credit: James Abundis, Boston Globe.

By Kay Lazar | The Boston Globe | January 6, 2014

Roughly 21,000 times last year, physicians, social workers, family members, and other concerned residents contacted Massachusetts Protective Services authorities to report suspicions that an elderly person was being abused.

In about one third of those cases, the concern involved financial exploitation, according to state officials, a problem that is expected to grow significantly as the population ages and the number of older adults left vulnerable by Alzheimer’s disease nationwide is projected to double, and perhaps triple, by 2050.

With a potential tsunami of elder financial abuse on the horizon, researchers, health care leaders, lawyers, and lawmakers have launched a number of initiatives to better understand the size and scope of the issue and craft strategies to minimize harm. Continue reading »

Click above to view the flyer for this event.

On December 12th, 2013, at Brigham and Women’s Hospital’s Bornstein Amphitheater, CLBB joined forces with the Boston Society of Neurology and Psychiatry to host a conversation among experts in neurology, psychiatry, and the law about how the science of aging could impact how we protect older adults from victimization and undue influence. Where do we draw the line between protection and paternalism?  What constitutes a bad financial decision?  Who needs additional protections?

Panelists included Bruce H. Price, MD, Chief of Neurology at McLean Hospital and Co-Director of CLBB;  Rebecca W. Brendel, MD, JD, Consultant to the Law & Psychiatry Service at MGH, Clinical Director of the Home Base Program,  Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School; Susan Stenger, Attorney with decades of experience handling probate litigation, including undue influence and lack of capacity cases; and Judge Susan Ricci, Associate Justice of the Massachusetts Probate and Family Court in Worcester.

Kay Lazar, Health Reporter at the Boston Globe with a focus on Aging, Sports Medicine and Public Health, moderated a panel discussion and Audience Q&A following the speaker remarks.

To watch video from this event, visit our Vimeo channel on Capacity, or watch individual segments below.

Also, read Kay Lazar’s story about this topic and CLBB’s role in the Boston Globe.

Continue reading »