Your Book Purchase is Our Gain!

When you purchase one of the books listed here by clicking on either the picture or the book title, WISE & Healthy Aging gets a commission.

Books to Help You Safeguard Against Fraud and Elder Abuse

The following books shed light on the complex and growing world of elder law. The tips and resources they offer can help you prevent fraud and avoid elder abuse.

Clicking on the link for any of these books will take you to Amazon.com. If you purchase the book, Amazon will share a portion of the proceeds with WISE & Healthy Aging.

American Bar Association Legal Guide for Americans Over 50: Everything About the Law and Medicare and Medicaid, Retirement Rights, and Long-Term Choices ... and Your Parents by the American Bar Association This is a comprehensive view of legal issues that anyone over 50 needs to know about. It includes coverage of your rights under Medicare and Medicaid as well as your retirement rights. For many individuals in the sandwich generation this is valuable not only from a personal standpoint but also as the law affects caring for aging parents.


A Guide to Elder Planning: Everything You Need to Know to Protect Yourself Legally and Financially by Steve Weisman. According to Weisman, an elder law attorney and host of the radio show “A Touch of Gray,” "It is not what you make that counts, it is how much you keep..." His book focuses on protecting your assets (from prenuptial agreements to who owns the dog), insurance, trusts, credit issues for seniors, powers of attorney, health care directives, estate planning, income taxes and tax relief strategies such as reverse mortgages as well as a chapter on scams such as phony prizes, IRS impersonators, identity theft and social security scams.


Coping With Your Difficult Older Parent: A Guide for Stressed-Out Children by Grace Lebow and Barbara Kane
Coping with a parent when you were a teenager was one thing, but coping with a needy, fearful, hostile or critical parent who depends on you for care is vastly more challenging. Taking care of a parent in these circumstances may seem like an endless high-stress battle. This book, written by professionals with more than 20 years in the field of gerontology, is a common-sense guide on how to improve communications, handle contentious behaviors and avoid vicious cycles of counterproductive behavior while caring for a difficult parent.


Elder Abuse Prevention: Emerging Trends and Promising Strategies by Lisa Nerenberg. This book describes what has been done and what remains to be done to prevent elder abuse, treat its effects, and ensure justice. In short, it is about making our communities safer places to grow old. Nerenberg explores trends that have shaped or define practice in the field including the "criminalization" of elder abuse, the Supreme Court's Olmstead decision, an increasingly multicultural elderly population, and heightened understanding the "psychology of victimization." She describes elder forensics centers, elder courts, family justice centers, elder shelters, new "hybrid" multidisciplinary teams, asset investigators, mass marketing fraud prevention, support groups for victims, international inititiatives, and culturally specific outreach.


Eldercare 911: The Caregiver’s Complete Handbook for Making Decisions by Susan Beerman and Judith Rappaport-Musson. This book is a practical guide to caring for elderly parents including the pros and cons of caregiving, recognizing when your parents need help, dealing with parents who refuse help and long distance caregiving. It has a chapter on detecting and dealing with various types of elder abuse. It offers tips on how to hire home care workers and the warning signs of self-neglect or dangerous situations for an older person to be living in.


Elder Law: A Legal and Financial Guide for Caregivers and Seniors by Peter J. Strauss and Nancy M. Lederman. This book is a comprehensive look at the myriad laws that affect older people. The authors lay out rights and legal options so that readers can make decisions now about health care, retirement income and living arrangements in later years. It has a detailed section on hosing options, including reverse mortgages. Despite its detail and the subject matter, the book is clearly and well written with frequent section breaks. The book ends with a helpful and comprehensive resources section.


Fleecing Grandma and Grandpa: Protecting against Scams, Cons, and Frauds by Betty L. Alt and Sandra K. Wells There is no end to the creativity that scam artists and criminals can come up with to take someone’s money. Unfortunately, seniors are a vulnerable target for scams, cons and frauds. The book covers fraud that sneaks in through both snail mail and e-mail, identity theft, telemarketing frauds, caretakers and crime, when romance is used to bait a scam and how to protect one’s self against fraud. This lively, vivid account of one of the most insidious forms of crime will help families and individuals protect themselves and their loved ones from the machinations of those who view them as easy marks.


Frolik and Kaplan's Elder Law in a Nutshell by Lawrence A. Frolik and Richard L. Kaplan.
This updated version of an older book covers elder law into 2006, including changes in Medicare and its new Part D prescription drug program. As the title suggests, the book presents a complex and rapidly growing sector of the law in concise terms. The book is designed to help anyone who has regular contact with older persons including lawyers, social workers, health care workers, retirement planners and gerontologists.


Protect Yourself from Real Estate and Mortgage Fraud: Preserving the American Dream of Homeownership For most of us, our house is our largest single asset. Yet according to the FBI, real estate fraud is one of the fastest growing white-collar crimes in the United States. This book tells real estate investors, professionals and consumers how to spot a scam and how to recover if they do fall victim to fraud. The authors have included case studies to show how different types of real estate scams unfold.