Case Study Assignment on Vulnerable Person

This case study discusses the care interventions that can be used for Clara, a socially isolated and lonely older person who became a victim of financial fraud. It also highlights the legislation acts to protect Clara. The challenges faced by healthcare professionals during the implementation of interventions are also discussed.

Running head: CASE STUDY ASSIGNMENT ON VULNERABLE PERSON
Case Study Assignment on Vulnerable Person
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

2CASE STUDY ASSIGNMENT ON VULNERABLE PERSON
Social isolation and loneliness are one of the major area of concern in UK and it is
mainly seen among the older age people of UK. Social isolation refers to the lack of social
support or contact and on the other hand the loneliness is the feeling of being isolated or being
alone. With growing percentage of loneliness and isolation, it is also seen that, there are various
adverse health effect due to the isolation and loneliness. Among them, depression, general health
condition, quality of life are very important health issues (Courtin & Knapp 2015). In this case
study of Clara, it is seen that, after death of her husband, she became isolated from the society
totally and start to become lonely. In order to avoid loneliness, she had started to engage herself
in competition letters. According to this letters, she had won lottery and to claim her winnings
she had to pay in advance fees. After that, she started to play more competitions regularly and to
give more money to the scammer. It is another problem for the lonely people to be the game of
the scammers. According to a report of BBC News, it is seen that almost 230,630 cases of fraud
were reported in 2015 ( up to end of march) ( Douglas 2015). Clara was also a victim of
monitory fraud and spent a huge amount of money. Even she had no money to buy her food. She
had complained to the health care worker that to distract her mind from her husband’s death, she
had done all this. Although she had full mental capacity, but she still did not believe that she was
fooled by the scammers. During this time, she had already played almost 15 competitions and all
the times she was fooled by the scammer. Due to those scams she had lost all her money. In this
essay, care interventions that can be used for Clara are discussed. Along with this, the legislation
acts to protect Clara is highlighted.
In order to support Clara, there should be two type of interventions. The first one is for
giving support related to the monitory frauds that she had experienced and the second one is for
helping her to come out from the loneliness and social isolations. Firstly, from the case study, it

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was seen that, due to her husband’s death Clara started to feel lonely and she started to isolate
herself from the society. Due to this social isolation, she had become a game of the scammers.
In order to engage herself to any kind of work she had started playing those fraud games. Even
after getting no prize after paying money, she did not stop playing. Moreover she started to play
more games in order to win more amount of prizes. Even she failed to realize the fact that she
was trapped by the scammers in spite of having full mental stability. She had lost all her money
and she even did not have any money to buy her food as she had played 15 competitions
simultaneously. In case of all the competitions results were same. Even After the health care
worker and trading standard worker had informed her about the scam, she did not want to believe
this truth as the playing was her weapon to negate loneliness. She did not even want to lose the
way in which she was trying to forget the grievances of her husband’s death. So it can be said
that the primary concern for Clara was to abolish her isolation from the society and loneliness. In
order to do this, various method can be used. Firstly, the social interactions should be increased
so that she would not feel lonely anymore. Enhancement of the social facilitation will help Clara
to interact with the peers or other people who are also lonely. In this type of practice, there is
reciprocal benefit to the people who are participating in this process (Gardiner, Geldenhuys and
Gott 2018). In order to achieve this, Clara may be encouraged to participate in group activities
rather than lottery competitions. Clara may enroll herself in any charity funded friendship clubs
or in a group in which the members shared a common interests with Clara. As a part of group
activity, if Clara participate in such things, it will be very much helpful for Clara as she would be
in touch with other and also can interchange her thoughts with each other. This may help Clara to
get rid of her loneliness. As she started to lose her consciousness, she might need a psychological
therapy. In spite of having complete mindfulness she failed to recognize the monetary fraud. This

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suggested that, there was lack of consciousness and it should be addressed as soon as possible
because this was in primary stage of the mental disorder. By using humor therapy, stress
reduction therapy, mindfulness therapy, it would be possible to assist Clara in reduction of her
loneliness (Gardiner, Geldenhuys and Gott 2018). In addition, it was seen that, the health care
worker also reported that, Clara lost her weight. The reason behind this may be that, due to
loneliness she had lost her desire to eat. Along with this, she had not enough money to buy food
as she lost all her money in lottery gaming. So she needed the support of the health care
professionals in order to improve the condition of her own health. As she was careless about her
own health, she must be given care in community setting or in a nursing home. Along with this,
the Clara may be enrolled formal program of care as well. According to a study of Nicholson
and Shellman (2013), it was seen that, they introduced the program named CARELINK program
that was a community-university partnership in which the nursing students went to visit the older
people to assist them in socialization. From this study, it was seen that, the patients who were
enrolled in the CARELINK program, had showed better result in terms of social isolation than
that of the people who had not received enrollment under this program. It was seen that, the
patients receiving the care had 12 times better result than the patient without that care plan. As
Clara was feeling lonely in her house, she might be encouraged to having a pet and that will help
Clara to get attached with that pet. Attachment with the pet will help to reduce the loneliness of
Clara. From the case study it was seen that, Clara confessed to the health care professionals that,
he played the lottery games as she no work to do in her house and she thought that playing
lottery was an engagement to her and also it helped to distract her mind from the incident of her
husband’s death. So that it can be said that, should be engaged in some work so that she had
something to do and as well as this work engagement will also help her to forget the bad

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incident of her life. As a part of skill development program for Clara, gardening program,
internet use can be recommended. There was evidence that support that the skill development
program like internet use, gardening had positively affected to reduce the loneliness and social
isolation (Gardiner, Geldenhuys and Gott 2018). In a study conducted by Heo et al. (2015)
showed that, internet use had a positive impact on reducing loneliness. In their study, the sample
size was 5203 and the result showed a direct relationship in between the internet use and
reduction in loneliness. In another study conducted by Toepoel (2013), showed that, in case of
reducing the loneliness leisure activities were very much effective. From their study result it was
seen that leisure activities was successful in increasing social connections. However they also
mentioned that listening radio, watching tv were not capable of increasing the social
connectedness while voluntary work, cultural activities reading a book were very much effective
in case of enhancing the social connection. In case of Clara, these can be followed as she was
suffering from the problem of social isolation and loneliness and due to this problem she was
trapped by the scammers. Even she had also received phone calls from the scammers and they
even tried to snatch information about fixed assets of Clara such as Clara’s house. So it was very
much important for Clara to rescue her from this condition.
As Clara was already trapped by the scammers, it was very much important that she
should be given safeguarding and as well as legislative support as she was a victim of financial
fraud. As a part of the financial fraud Clara had sent money to scammers as she was told to
deposit money in order to release her lottery prize. This process was continued for several time
and Clara continuously became the victim of this monetary fraud. As a consequence of this
financial abuse she had extreme level of stress, depression, unwillingness for working
(Davidson, Rossall and Hart 2015). So it was very important to provide legislative support to

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Clara. In UK, to protect the older, lonely and socially isolated people there are various act such
as Fraud Act 2006, Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006, The Court of Protection, The
Mental Capacity Act 2005, and The Care Act 2014. The Fraud Act 2006 covered a wide range of
fraud cases and it can be used in case of financial fraud cases also. In the Safeguarding
Vulnerable Groups Act 2006, it is the major concern of this act to restrict ineligible people from
working with the vulnerable people such as older age population by using these safeguarding
acts . In addition, this act also can be referred in case of financial fraud cases. The Mental
Capacity Act 2005 protects the people who lack capacity in terms of protection of their financial
affairs (Davidson, Rossall and Hart 2015). The Care Act 2014 is the most useful act to protect
the lonely people as this act sets a safeguarding for the adult people. According to this act, there
should be safeguarding Adults Board operated by the local authority and this board will protect
and help to those people who need support and care. Along with this they will also help the
people who are at risk of abuse or already have abused by scammers of a particular area
(GOV.UK, 2018). Financial abuse such as fraud, financial transaction, exploitation are covered
under the act named The Care Act 2014. The section 42 (3) of the Care Act (2014) says that
financial abuse can be included under “Abuse” and the “financial abuse” comprises several
activities such as stealing of money or other property, misuse of property or money, being
defrauded. This act will be very much helpful for Clara as she had lost a huge amount of money
as she played lottery games and to get the prizes she was forced to deposit fees. In addition, the
associated statutory Care Act guidance (Care Act Guidance 14:17) also supports the financial
fraud by way of supporting the financial transaction, internet scamming fraud and also theft
(GOV.UK, 2018). According to the Care Act (2014), the safeguarding duties will be applied to
those who has already experienced or at risk of abuse, who has no one or any local authority to

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take care for them (Davidson, Rossall and Hart 2015). It was seen that, the percentage of
loneliness had decreased after the introduction of the Care Act 2014 and it was quite evident that,
due to this act the condition had improved for the lonely people. Along with this, it was also
important to enhance awareness among the lonely people about the frauds and financial abuses
so that they can be aware of the condition (Scie.org.uk, 2018). As a part of this program they
should be given knowledge about spam emails, fraud calls. Local authorities can also show them
some scam pictures so that it would be easy for the socially isolated people to identify the fake
one. They should also be given information related to fake lottery winning. This step was very
much important for Clara as she was trapped by fraud messages that was related to lottery
winning. Along with this, it should be advised to Clara that she should not respond to any kind
of phone calls that asked her about the assets and also asked her to deposit any kind of money.
Moreover, she should be advised that whenever she would receive any kind of such phone calls
or such kind of messages, she should immediately report to the local authority (Fenge 2016).
However there are several hindrances that might be faced by the health care professionals during
the implementations of the interventions. According to the case study, it was seen that she did
not want to believe the health care workers as well as the trading standard worker. So it can be
said that during their work, the health care workers definitely face the trust issue. Not only this, it
will be very difficult to train Clara in various skillful activities of daily life as she had lost the
willingness of work due to her social isolation and loneliness. In addition, Clara had less
cognitive power and this would act as a big barrier in way of learning any new activity of daily
life. Clara was not familiar with internet and it was see that use of internet was very much
effective in reducing loneliness (Hemingway and Jack 2013). So it would be another challenge to
make familiar Clara with the internet. Although, Clara had full mental capacity, she was not

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aware about the reality that she was trapped. The health care professionals would face difficulty
when they try to tell Clara that she was not well mentally and physically. Clara might not agree
to start her treatment. In addition, she had no money to continue her treatment and she had no
money to buy food as well. The financial challenge would be a major problem for the health care
professionals when working with Clara. In addition it was not possible for Clara to earn money
as she had lost all her motivation to do any kind of work. That was the reason for Clara to play
the lottery games and lost all her money. She thought that, the completions was the only thing
that she could do that time. After, losing a lot of money she did not even realize that, she should
stop this lottery gaming. This proved that, she was not completely mentally stable. So there was
actual need for Clara to have treatment for her current condition and as well as she needed care
and support.
Lastly it can be concluded that, the condition of Clara was very much sensitive and it
should be handled in a very sophisticated manner as she had no financial support and as well as
no mental support. Along with this, she was social isolated totally and this led her towards
serious depression. However, it was in very initial stage and with proper care and interventions
the problems of loneliness and social isolation can be solved. In addition, Clara also needed
legislative support as she was economically betrayed.

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References
Courtin, E. and Knapp, M., 2017. Social isolation, loneliness and health in old age: a scoping
review. Health & social care in the community, 25(3), pp.799-812.
Davidson, S., Rossall, P. and Hart, S., 2015. Financial abuse evidence review. Age UK Research.
Available from.
Douglas, J., 2015. Loneliness and the risk of scam mail. BBC News. Available at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-34383854 [Accessed 25 Nov. 2018].
Fenge, L., 2016. Safeguarding-Vulnerable-Adults-from-Financial-Scamming.pdf Ncpqsw.com.
Available at: http://www.ncpqsw.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/ [Accessed 25 Nov. 2018]..
Gardiner, C., Geldenhuys, G. and Gott, M., 2018. Interventions to reduce social isolation and
loneliness among older people: an integrative review. Health & social care in the community,
26(2), pp.147-157.
GOV.UK., 2018. Care and support statutory guidance. Available at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/care-act-statutory-guidance/care-and-support-
statutory-guidance [Accessed 25 Nov. 2018].
Hemingway, A. and Jack, E., 2013. Reducing social isolation and promoting well being in older
people. Quality in ageing and older adults, 14(1), pp.25-35.
Heo, J., Chun, S., Lee, S., Lee, K.H. and Kim, J., 2015. Internet use and well-being in older
adults. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 18(5), pp.268-272.
Nicholson, N.R. and Shellman, J., 2013. Decreasing social isolation in older adults: effects of an
empowerment intervention offered through the CARELINK program. Research in
gerontological nursing.

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Scie.org.uk., 2018. The Care Act: Safeguarding adults. Available at:
https://www.scie.org.uk/care-act-2014/safeguarding-adults/ [Accessed 25 Nov. 2018].
Toepoel, V., 2013. Ageing, leisure, and social connectedness: how could leisure help reduce
social isolation of older people?. Social indicators research, 113(1), pp.355-372.