Elder Abuse Research Paper

Elder Abuse
The mistreatment of the elderly is not something as it has been there since antiquity and despite its severity, the society continues to ignore elder abuse. Various initial trials to understand the clinical spectrum of this phenomenon and to identify an effective intervention strategy have been limited by their unpredictable nature. In the past decade, there have been improvements on the research regarding this subject as a way of provoking interest in the field of nursing, particularly professionals who take care of the older adults and their immediate families. Though in most cases the term elderly abuse has been used to refer to physical mistreatment of the older citizens, financial exploitation as part of psychological mistreatment

In the previous decade, defining elder abuse was over extensive and included many behaviors not only restricted within domestic abuse and self-neglect. However, recent researchers categorized all these behaviors within five consortiums to definer elder abuse and these are: physical abuse, psychological abuse, sexual abuse, financial abuse and neglect (Laumann, Leitsch & Waite, 2008). Physical abuse is any relating act carried with the purpose of inflicting physical pain. Psychological abuse also known as verbal abuses are acts carried with the intention of imposing emotional pain. Sexual abuse on the other hand is defined as any non-consensual sexual contact. Financial abuse refers to misappropriation of the senior citizen’s money or property without his or her consent. Finally, neglect is the abandoning or any circumstance when the designated caregiver fails to meet the necessary needs of the older

In a research of more than 4000 older citizens living in New York, it was found that the rate of elder abuse was at 76% (Burnes et al., 2015). A national survey conversely noted the rate was at 9%. It is highly likely though that mentioned figures were underestimated since not every senior citizen took part in the survey and also the reliance on the self-reported cases excluded older persons suffering from dementia. According to (Peterson et al., 2014; Dong, Chen & Simon, 2014), older people suffering from dementia are the individuals mostly prone to financial mistreatment. In considering such incidences, it is easy to make an estimate that 10% of older individuals reasonably suffer from elder abuse (Acierno et al., 2010). In all the five categories of mistreatment, physical abuse is the most common incidence in care facilities closely followed by emotional abuse; and this is the other way round when it comes to the elderly who are taken care of by the immediate family members (Burnes et al.,