Elder Abuse And Neglect

Efforts to confirm the existence of elderly abuse are, without doubt, ambiguous in the present and incomprehensible in in the past. Many find it difficult to believe how widespread and recurrent the issue is. Elder abuse is a tragedy that affects the elderly of all cultures, social settings, religions, physical abilities and of both genders. It can be defined as "a single or repeated act or lack of appropriate action occurring within any relationship where there is an expectation of trust which causes harm or distress to an older person or violates their human and civil rights". A report by the Abuse and Neglect of older people in Ireland provided initial statistics on elder abuse and neglect. The statistics showed that over 10,000 people over

Elder abuse surfaced in 1975 when Baker and Burston both released journals about the physical abuse of other women. This is not to say that elder abuse did not exist before 1975 but it was not identified as a significant problem until then. The prevalence of elder abuse internationally varies with the highest rate of elder abuse in Spain with 0.8% and with the highest rate of 18-35% in Israel. 59% of the people in the population felt as if they has an immense level of support within their communities with 91% of them feeling well supported by their families. Whereas 5% felt they had poor family and community support. The National Centre for the Protection of Older People (NCPOP) have provided statistics on the rates of abuse and individual types of abuse the elderly are subject to in Ireland. The overall presence of elderly abuse in Ireland in the last year was 2.2% bringing the amount of people who have experienced mistreatment to an estimated 10,201. Financial abuse was the most prevalent in the last year with 1.3% suffering, 1.2% were recorded to have suffered psychological abuse, 0.5% of the elderly had been physically abused and sexual abuse was the least common form of elderly abuse at 0.05%. Of those who had reported being abused in the last 12 months, 25% of them had been subject to more than one type of abuse. Based on the demographic characteristics

In the NEAI is states that males were the most common perpetrators of physical abuse at 62.6%, emotional abuse 60.1% and financial exlploitation 59.0% it was only in cases of neglect where women were slightly more frequent abusers at 54.4%. The age category of most abusers is within 41-59 age group. One third of abusers were in fact elderly themselves, being 60 and over. The study also showed that family members were the bausers in 89.7% of incidences elder abuse. Adult children represent the largest group of abusers, the second largest group on perpetrators were spouses at 19.3% then neighbours and in-home service providers come in at 1.4%. p7 The National Elder Abuse Incidence Study