Every year over 3.5 million people turn 65. This is the fastest-growing group in the United States. By 2050, people over the age of 65 will make up 22% of the total population.

Nearly half of those turning 65 will suffer from some form of dementia at some point in their lives. Dementia affects every aspect of the patient’s life and the lives of everybody who cares about them. Even worse, it leaves all these people in a very vulnerable state.

How do we preserve our families? First, we need to understand and balance our elders’ wishes and dignity and our own need to protect freedom of speech and association.

Recent exposés of the abuses of commercial guardianship and the horrors of advancing dementia for people of all economic levels – “I Care So Much,” “The Father,” “How the Elderly Lose Their Rights,” and prizewinning series in the Albuquerque Journal by journalists Diane Dimond and Colleen Heild – have made heroic efforts at exposing the scope of the problem. I’m adding to this literature with Pretense of Protection: My Mother’s Nightmare Journey through Legal Guardianship (Wisdom Editions/An imprint of Calumet Editions). It’s a casebook showing exactly how various people manipulated my mother and me and how I began to develop counter-strategies.

Regardless of whether the elders you love are famous and have millions of dollars or are simply trying to survive on Social Security, they can be targeted when they are vulnerable. So can you. Dayspring provides you with the knowledge you need to help you decide which “experts” might not really have your best interests (and those of your loved ones) at heart. As recent press reports have shown, many who make a living by caring for our elders lack proper oversight. This situation allows predators within this group to use vulnerable families for their own power and enrichment. The “experts” who give lectures and offer meetings at senior citizens’ centers are often the same people who earn their primary living as commercial guardians, conservators, and trustees. (They prefer the term “professional”; I prefer the term “commercial” because, in my experience, the predators in this group are motivated by the twin idols of power and greed.)

Some people have gone bankrupt trying to protect family members when the law didn’t allow them to win. They just didn’t know it. Some keep fighting in ways that have already been shown to be ineffective, but they’re unaware of this. Knowledge gives you the power to take effective action. (It doesn’t become power until you use it.) Knowledge may prevent you from wasting time and energy on strategies that have been shown to fail and instead allow you to concentrate your energies on arenas where you have a chance of winning.

It’s dangerous out there. I know. Family members often become “collateral damage” in various interested parties’ grabs for power and money. I came through this jungle myself, and miraculously I’m still standing. I want Dayspring to be your guide. I want to help you slash your way through this dense overgrowth of laws and regulations and cronyism with as little harm to you and your loved ones as possible. That’s Dayspring’s mission.