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If you think about abuse, child abuse is often quite visible and the public has become educated on domestic violence, but elder abuse often happens behind closed doors, often at the hands of family members.

When allegations of abuse or neglect are made, what's the process of investigation?

Carol Mitchell is the Program Manager of Adult Protective Services in Orange County, California.  We met through UC Irvine's Dr. Laura Mosqueda. Carol and Laura meet weekly together with other interested parties from law enforcement, mental health and shelter advocates to review cases of adults in jeopardy. If you suspect abuse call the Adult Protective Services hotline: 1-800-451-5155.

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Do you have a "wisdom tradition" for dealing with end of life issues? What is the Five Wishes Living Will? And what about Do Not Resuscitate directives, if you're taking care of Mom or Dad, when should you consider a DNR?

I always thought of grieving as a lonely experience, until I met Eileen Geller of Consoling Communities in Seattle. She shares her experiences as a hospice nurse, "amazingly, it's about living".

Download her free Guide to Care and Support During Serious Illness.

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What's the fastest growing segment of the population? According to Dr. Laura Mosqueda, Director of Geriatrics at the UC Irvine Center of Excellence on Elder Abuse and Neglect, it's 85 year-olds. Since this same demographic is so prone to dementia, you have all the components for elder abuse.

Maybe you're thinking of institutions like nursing homes, but "the vast majority of elder abuse occurs in private homes and the perpetrators typically are spouses or adult children". Surprised?

She and her colleagues have made hundreds of house calls with Orange County Adult Protective Services to look for signs of elder abuse. But that begs the question: is that a bruise because the elderly bruise easily, or is it abuse?

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Just read this: if you sit on a nonprofit board don't think you're going anywhere soon, not until after you listen to Dan Pallotta describe Uncharitable, his riveting indictment of how we hobble nonprofits. It's a myth-busting, paradigm-shifting re-examination of what's going on in Charity, in my case, right under my nose.

I'd noticed the review in the New York Times awhile ago, so I picked up a copy then it sat in a pile. But since I sit on 4 nonprofit boards, the sub-title nagged: "How Restraints on Nonprofits Undermine Their Potential"; I took it on 2 long distance trips, a week each in Atlanta then Madrid. What a great companion this manifesto turned out to be.

Like many of my angel investor peers, in addition to sitting on for-profit boards of private companies, many of us end up on nonprofits, too. For myself, I'd learned quite a bit from fellow angels, especially Tech Coast Angels' Dave Berkus, and I'd enjoyed putting some new concepts on the table and into play for 2 nonprofit boards in the past year. I was enjoying the process: making an organizational change and seeing a pretty immediate positive result, then I did it again for the local school of the arts advisory board I sit on and again, an almost immediate positive change; this was fun, tweeking nonprofit boards was not only possible, but the feedback cycle could be immediate. Like learning to drive, I thought, maybe I can accelerate the cycle. So that makes me and maybe you, too, the perfect audience for Uncharitable author, Dan Pallotta. I need to create a new sub-category on this blog, "myth buster", then Dan could be cross referenced with the likes of Fools Gold author Scott Shane and Early Exits author Basil Peters.

On the 10 hour flight home from Madrid last month I lent my copy to Angel Capital Association Chairman, John Huston. Half way over the Atlantic he hands it back, "this makes my head hurt; I'm getting my own copy!". When I tell Dan, like the interviewer I'm supposed to be, he asks, "what do you think he meant by that?". I was pretty sure I knew and you'll be able to guess once you listen to Dan Pallotta.

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Has it touched your life, affected one of your loved ones?

"Alzheimer's is the public health threat of the 21st century," says Maria Carrillo, Director of Medical and Scientific Relations at the Alzheimer's Association in Chicago. Although it's the 6th leading cause of death in the US, and working its way up, "there's so many different avenues of research that are being pursued right now that give us a lot of hope". Like drugs in Phase 3 trials, for example.

Where are they at? They're doing a lot of basic science research. Maria describes how the research is working back in time; they know the end result and they believe the disease begins 20 years prior. Do the math, that means the disease is beginning for many of us right now! 

"Probably 95% of our donations come from individuals." So they have quite a marketing challenge and have to keep getting the word out, like: "there are 5.3 million Americans living with this disease today". Last year they donated $26M to fund research, a new high; a lot of it going to new investigators.

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"A daily dose of rigorous cognitive exercise," to prevent or slow dementia, that's how Dakim CEO Dan Michel describes his company's Brain Fitness System.

Long term memory, short term memory, language, computation, spatial orientation and critical thinking are the six cognitive domains the system exercises.

He bootstrapped the company and self funded it for the first 5 years before raising an angel round in 2005. In 2008 he raised an institutional round of $10.5M.

Does the system stave off Alzheimers? Can it be used as a hedge against dementia?

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Tamara Hayes of the Oregon Center for Aging and Technology (ORCATECH) at Oregon's Health and Science University is collaborating with Steve Agritelley at Intel on common projects related to aging in place technologies.

She 'instruments' peoples homes with unobtrusive sensors. What for? Prompting to take a medicine, for example; the sensors are context aware and know when it's a good time to interrupt. Using motion sensors for movement, "phone sensors for socialization, contact sensors in the door so we know when they come and go, we use bed mats for restlessness in bed." It's like surveillance, but without any cameras.

There's a lot of technology out there, but its effectiveness or application "is not well understood yet". 

"There are a lot of different disciplines cooperating to make this happen."

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Can technology be used to keep seniors in their homes and out of assisted living? Steve Agritelley thinks so. He's the Director of Product Incubation and Prototyping in Intel's Digital Health Group in Oregon. He calls it Aging in Place.

"Imagine someone in a disease management program, taking home a monitoring system that's easy to use with a touch screen that everyday they can interact with," that's what Steve and his group are building. The device would communicate back to a clinician who's managing a variety of people facilitating remote monitoring. Meaning more seniors can live inexpensively in the comfort of their own homes and still receive effective care. Steve's research tracks the social networks of at-home Alzheimers patients and creates devices, like an iPhone, that can show a picture of who's calling and offer reminders of the last call and what you talked about.

But Steve's team doesn't start their research on the technology side, instead he has a team of ethnographers, from the field of anthropology, who do a 'deep hanging out' with the subjects to learn how they live in their homes.

"To be on the forefront of research is very, very exciting. The market is just starting to develop." He knows he can't do it alone so he's collaborating with the Oregon Center for Aging and Technology (ORCATECH) at the Oregon Health & Science University and the Center for Aging Services Technologies (CAST) In Washington, DC.

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This first interview starts with my sister Mary. The show will cover many topics and perspectives, but this whole concept started because of concerns about our aging parents.

I'm a baby boomer and so is Mary. Perhaps you, too are wondering about the options your parents face. Boomers are a huge demographic and our parents are living longer lives and facing great challenges in healthcare expenses and lifestyle choices.

As our parents grow into their 80's their dual lifestyle of winter in Florida and summer at the cottage in New Hampshire is suiting them less well than when they started retirement 20 years ago. Neither locale is comfortable for year round living, yet the back and forth and the dual sets of doctors is getting to be a bit much. Add to that, other than Mary, four of their five children and all their grandchildren are in California. Sounds simple you say? Move them west? But decisions are getting harder to make at their age, and there's the emotional bond to the cottage, not just for Mom & Dad, but for us siblings, too. So we're getting organized; there's a family meeting planned for Valentines Day weekend in Los Angeles. All the siblings will gather and Mom & Dad, too. What are the priorities we must negotiate as we try to align everyone's concerns, wishes and feelings for the cottage? Can my parents muddle through issues like healthcare proxies and a power of attorney? We know they must have them. No one's seen their will recently, my copy is dated 1986. It's rumored to name all 5 siblings as executors which sounds like the ultimate in fairness, but we suspect will be the ultimate nightmare. Can we siblings work together effectively? We've never had to. Let's start with Mary...