Many previous investigations of mistreatment of older adults have not assessed financial
exploitation by family members, but this is the most likely form of victimization. We found
that the prevalence of this type of mistreatment in the past year was approximately 5%, which
is slightly higher than the 3.5% reported by Laumann et al.8 and indicates that older adults
are at high risk for this form of mistreatment. Older adults who needed assistance with activities of daily life or who reported poor health were more likely to be targets, a finding that
echoes past research on fraud and financial abuse of impaired older adults.1