Legal ProfessionalsBecome Your Elderly Clients’ Greatest ProtectorInternational Alzheimer’s/Dementia Expert, Susan Scanland has specialized information that IMPROVES your clients' outcome!
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Securing knowledge about your most vulnerable clients...
Susan Scanland, a national and international Alzheimer’s, dementia and memory expert, in 35 years of geriatric practice dealing with memory loss, has seen her share of issues that can leave families and their attorneys with their heads spinning! She’s offered legal expert witness consultation for diminished capacity issues, with her extremely rare 35-year background of dementia expertise. Susan spent 12 years making house calls while teaching resident physicians geriatrics, 10 years diagnosing dementia at a geriatric clinic, and 35 years diagnosing and treating the 4D’s: dementia, depression, delirium and dangerous drugs in nursing homes. She has thousands of case studies on behavioral management and medications with the five most common types of dementia.
Susan Scanland is one of the top thought leaders in the field of Alzheimer’s and dementia. Susan is 1 of 12 academic, research and clinical national expert members of the Alzheimer’s Association Best Clinical Practice Guidelines Working Group, currently guiding the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s and mild cognitive impairment across the United States. She also served on the National Antipsychotic Reduction Task Force of the American Society of Consultant Pharmacists.
Susan has discovered in 35 years as an Alzheimer’s/dementia expert:
- Persons with Alzheimer’s and dementia who were never diagnosed, even years after symptoms began; who experienced negative financial, legal and social consequences.
- Non-demented elders (with temporary confusion due to a medical condition or medication) admitted to ER’s, hospitals, psychiatric units and even nursing homes who were given a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease!
- Families whose loved ones went bankrupt due to undetected Alzheimer’s disease; because no one put together the clues of memory loss, poor judgement and personality/behavioral changes.
- Persons with Alzheimer’s living independently, unsupervised at home too long who, unfortunately, were involved in fatal auto accidents.
- Caring relatives (caregivers) who were set up and falsely accused of elder financial exploitation by jealous, greedy relatives: aka the “WANNA-BE” heirs.
- Patient-caregiver dyads who functionally “fizzle out” in their ability to care for each other: due to BOTH having undiagnosed dementia, depression or delirium, with no local relatives. One 85+ year-old brother and sister caregiving dyad were retired jewelers with nearly 100K of jewelry hidden in their home! Susan worked very closely in partnership with case managers from Area Agency on Aging during her “house call” days.
- Family members who went from being best friends to non-speaking arch-enemies because of the lack of guidance or disagreement regarding their loved one’s treatment in the elder care maze.
- All of this “Confusion about Confusion” can make it EXTREMELY difficult for the legal team dealing with power of attorney issues, trusts, wills and estate planning. On top of that, delirium (confusion due to medication or medical condition) can fluctuate from one week to the next! So your decision one week on financial capacity can change the next week…
Expert Witness Consultation/Strategic Work Sessions/Live or Virtual Seminars for
Legal Professionals
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Diminished Capacity:
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The Top Five Dementias:
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Delirium, Dementia, Depression, Dangerous Drugs in Elders:
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What’s an attorney to do?
Don’t let your clients/cases fall through the cracks due to lack of expertise. Susan will FIGHT for those vulnerable persons who don’t have a voice due to their dementia! Having served as an expert witness in the area of dementia diagnoses, Susan knows she has EXTREMELY valuable information and rare expertise that attorneys, judges and corporations dealing with POA, wills, trusts, family disputes and estate planning simply won’t find elsewhere.
7 Reasons to Hire Susan Scanland
1. You want your clients to trust YOU over the legal competition to protect assets they’ve worked all their lives to save! |
Elder financial exploitation estimates (National Council on Aging) are an astounding $36.5 BILLION annually. That equates to $100,000,000.00 per day! You need to make sure you’re educated and empowered to be trusted to protect the assets and estate of your aging clients.
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2. You want to offer your clients the HIGHEST level of service regarding cognitive issues impacting financial ability during their “Golden Years.” |
Not only an international speaker, Susan is also a passionate expert: sharing over three-plus decades of diagnosing and managing dementia with related family struggles. Legal professionals are unaware that half of all persons with symptomatic Alzheimer’s have not yet been diagnosed! The average time from first memory symptom to Alzheimer’s diagnosis is 3 years. Loss of basic financial skills is one of the first signs of cognitive loss; occurring several years PRIOR to the start of Alzheimer’s symptoms. Just begin to imagine what can happen financially and legally to your clients during that time gap.
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3. You want to guarantee the expert you hire is one of the best in the country! |
Eager to share expertise early in her career, Susan has spoken professionally since 1983, her second year in clinical practice. She’s held three geriatric faculty positions at two universities and a family medicine residency. Since developing a full-time speaking business, Susan provided nearly 700 presentations in 41 states, Europe and Canada. She is among the top 12% of all professional speakers as a Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) through the National Speakers Association (NSA). Plainly put: Susan is the person you want helping you understand elder cognitive issues.
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4. You want someone with real expertise to guide your legal actions. |
Susan’s presentations are illustrative, and include real-life examples. She shares examples from 35 years as a memory specialist/geriatric nurse practitioner which clarify the most complicated memory issues your clients encounter. Only 1% of physicians and 5% of nurse practitioners specialize in geriatrics: of those, very few specialize in Alzheimer’s and dementia care, and out of those, there are only a handful in their 35th year as a paid professional speaker. None do it as a full-time business (except Susan Scanland).
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5. You want an engaging, interactive program if you plan seminars to attract new clients or offer continuing education.
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Susan is not satisfied unless every person exceeds their goals for attending. She’s proven this with 700 seminars ranging from 4 to 400+ attendees: never once having an undesirable program outcome! Her programs impact quality of many lives for years after each participant departs. Additionally, Susan is enthusiastic about answering personal questions from attendees who line up AFTER the Q&A session.
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6. You want up-to-date content, not old information that doesn’t apply today. |
Susan LOVES keeping up with aging research. Susan has published 20 articles in scientific health journals and business publications and authored an academic book chapter about aging women. Her research zeal, professional expertise and speaking ability have yielded her National Speaker Bureau positions at every pharmaceutical company with dementia medications plus other national advisory boards. Susan is extremely honored to serve as 1 of 12 members of the Alzheimer’s Association Best Clinical Practice Guidelines Working Group, which is currently developing a guide for all physicians and health care providers across the United States for diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease and mild cognitive impairment (MCI).
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7. You want someone who is passionate and committed to helping you and your clients. |
Ten years ago, Susan’s son Brendan’s fourth grade class was asked what word their moms use most frequently. Brendan’s immediate response was “dementia.” Inspired in 1981 by her graduate program mentor at the University of Pittsburgh, she witnessed the first patient walk through the door at the now world-renowned University of Pittsburgh Alzheimer Disease Research Center (Yes, the one in the Concussion movie). During undergrad, she was selected for a National Institute of Health (NIH) internship, where she met her first Alzheimer’s patient/caregiver couple. By age 23, she had completed a master’s thesis on dementia; certain that this was her life’s calling.
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Learn about Alzheimer’s and other dementias in two online articles published by Susan in Today’s Geriatric Medicine:
"Susan jointly presented recently at the American Association of Geriatric Psychiatry National Convention in Washington. Her presentation was astounding and hugely well received."
– Merritt Widen, Forefront TeleCare Inc., Emeryville, CA
