June 14, 2018

Hello,
Tomorrow isWorld Elder Abuse Awareness Day– a day to cast light on issues that affect an estimated 5 million older adults. The annual day raises awareness about elder abuse, neglect, and exploitation.
UTHealth is an established leader in this field, with clinical, research, and educational initiatives to prevent and treat those who are abused and those who are at risk of abuse. Elder abuse is one of the key areas of expertise and excellence for ourUTHealth Consortium on Aging, led by Dr. Carmel Dyer. This effort leverages the strengths of our UTHealth faculty in partnership with community collaborators to best serve the older adults across our state.
TEAM – Texas Elder Abuse and Mistreatment Institute – is led by faculty and staff from UTHealth in collaboration with Harris Health and the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, Division of Adult Protective Services (APS). Through TEAM and other venues, UTHealth leads assessment and prevention through research, education, and multidisciplinary protective service planning in all areas of elder abuse, including self-neglect, financial, sexual, emotional, caregiver, and physical harm.
“TEAM,” explains Dr. Holly Holmes, director of our Division of Geriatric and Palliative Medicine, “is truly a team effort, led by Drs. Dyer and Dr. Jason Burnett, co-director of TEAM, and run by Leslie Clark, with the expertise of Dr. John Halphen, Dr. Carlos Reyes Ortiz, and Dr. Jessica Lee. We truly have an unprecedented level of expertise in identifying and addressing elder abuse.”
UTHealth is also a partner with theHarris County Senior Justice Assessment Center. The multidisciplinary center joins geriatricians, forensic nurses, case managers, and law enforcement to help with all types of elder abuse cases. Multidisciplinary teams meet weekly to review cases of victimization, with follow up in the justice system.
Dr. Burnett, assistant professor of internal medicine, and colleagues found that financial exploitation was second only to caregiver neglect and had very similar harmful outcomes, including mortality. Dr. Burnett and Dr. Robert Suchting, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, in partnership with Texas APS, are using big data science techniques to identify victim, interpersonal, and community level characteristics associated with elder financial exploitation.
Most recently, with the support of APS and UTHealth child abuse specialist Dr. Rebecca Girardet and her team, we launched the first statewide telehealth program for abused and neglected elders. This program allows our clinicians to provide services to both rural and urban sites throughout the state, using standardized evaluations of clients in their homes across Texas. The UTHealth team trained over 700 APS case workers and staff to use the program. Via telehealth, experts in Houston can assess the elderly person to determine whether he or she can live safely and independently in their home and to evaluate if abuse or neglect has occurred. This is a particularly important resource for rural communities, bringing geriatric and elder abuse expertise where our geriatric population is growing the fastest.
New research areas are being undertaken by TEAM. Funded by a grant from the John A. Hartford Foundation, Dr. Dyer is leading a project to design a care model to address elder mistreatment – starting with the emergency department. Other studies include a national evaluation of elder abuse fatality review teams and a study to define poly-victimization.
There is undoubtedly much work to be done to keep our vulnerable elders safe.
请和我一起感谢戴尔博士,赫尔姆斯博士nd their colleagues for their expertise and leadership.
Warm regards,
Barbara