Elderly Abuse
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In the United States the later years of a person's life have been called the "golden years." Instead, a growing number of the elderly are abused each year. Gray-Vickrey (2001) reports that neglect occurs in 49 percent of substantiated elder abuse cases, emotional abuse is found in 35 percent of cases, financial abuse is found in 30 percent of cases, and physical abuse or use of physical force is found in 25 percent of cases. The U.S. Department of Justice estimates that more than half a million elderly people are maltreated each year, and the number may be three times higher since few cases of abuse are reported or investigated (Axmaker, 2003). Other non-government sources cite a higher number of abuse cases. Experts estimate the number of older adults who are mistreated annually at more than two million (Swagerty, 1999, p.2804). A U.S. National Elder Abuse Incidence Study confirmed that reported elder abuse cases are only the "tip of the iceberg" (National Center on Elder Abuse, 2003). The study also reports that two-thirds of the perpetrators of abuse were adult children or spouses. It has also been found that the elderly are abused in nursing homes, hospitals, or other institutions; in one study, 36 percent of nursing home staff stated that they had witnessed at least one physical abuse incident with an elderly patient (Nelson, 2002). Clearly, elder mistreatment or abuse of the elderly is a growing social phenomenon.Elderly people are considered easy targets because t
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viously have an adverse effect on the family caregiver. However, the breach of ethical responsibility on the part of family members, who should be held to a higher standard of duty, is a profound moral dilemma.
One in 25 elderly persons is victimized. Almost one-third of this maltreatment is by adult children of the elderly, according to the National Aging Resource Center on Elder Abuse (Arbetter, 1995). The maltreatment or abuse consists of neglect (caretakers failing to provide services necessary to avoid physical or psychological harm such as withholding medical care or food); physical abuse (willful infliction of pain or injury); financial exploitation (improper use of an older person's resources, with or without their consent); emotional or psychological abuse (inflicting mental or emotional anguish through humiliation, intimidation or threatening); sexual abuse (the forcing of non-consensual sexual contact of any kind) (Axmaker, 2003). Serious cases of maltreatment have been reported in nursing homes. There are nearly 17,000 nursing homes in the United States that care for 1.6 million residents, and the figure is expected to rise to 6.6 million residents by 2050 (Nursing Home Abuse, 2003). A report on nursing home abuse co
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Approximate Word count = 2110
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)
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