According to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, some tens of thousands of older Michiganders fall victim to abuse, neglect, or exploitation every year.

Others, not yet elderly, also fall prey to scams, theft, neglect, and other abuses — often at the hands of people they love and trust, News staff writer Julie Riddle reported recently.

That’s why guardians and conservators, appointed by judges to help with developmental disabilities, mental illness, dementia, and other incapacitating circumstances make important life decisions, play such an important role.

Conservators — who assume control of a vulnerable person’s financial life — and guardians, who take over other decisions, develop close bonds with the people they serve, sometimes becoming both friend and family to people who have neither, or whose loved ones have tried to exploit their vulnerability, Kathleen Robson, owner of Assisting Services, told Riddle.

While anyone can be taken in by a scammer — an earlier story by Riddle told of a police officer who almost fell victim to a scam, himself, and thousands of scams and attempted scams are reported to state officials every year — those with incapacitating circumstances can more easily fall prey to scammers.

Guardians and conservators step in to help make sure that doesn’t happen.

We’re glad such positions exist.

— The Alpena News