Abuse and Neglects in Elderly: Critical Analysis and Solutions

This report discusses the critical analysis of the problem of abuse and neglect of elderly people in nursing homes and rest homes. It covers various risk factors such as physical, psychological, and emotional factors that have led to the increase in the population of elderly people in nursing homes. The report also suggests various solutions to overcome these problems.

ABUSE AND NEGLECTS IN
ELDERLY

ABUSE AND NEGLECTS IN ELDERLY: 1
Contents
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................2
Critical analysis of the selected problem or issues.................................................................................2
Logical and sequential arrangement of arguments and discussions.......................................................6
Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................7
References.............................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
This report brings out the current literature on neglect of elderly people in nursing
homes and rest homes. The report includes certain risk factors such as physical factors,
psychological abuse and emotional factors, which has resulted to the increase in the
population of elderly people in nursing homes. Every person such as man, woman, and child
deserves to be treated with respect and care. Every person deserves to remain safe no matter,
how old or young, rich or poor is the individual. Elderly people are alone, isolated and
depressed due to misbehaviour on the part of their children. The growing changes in life style
and western culture have resulted in complex relationships between elder parents and
working adults. Although, some social groups such as institutional groups, old-aged homes
actively participated in improving the living condition of elderly people but these old age
homes are not showing very positive results.
Critical analysis of the selected problem or issues
Elderly people always remained the integral part of the society. Parents who expect
and anticipate care, love, and support from their siblings are finding other shelter for
themselves to live. However, in the last decades, the researchers started addressing the issue
due to increasing population, which is neglected. Only 30% of elderly people are paid
through pension schemes. Responsibility of taking care of elderly people and protecting them
has fallen on the shoulders of adults in the family. In order to avoid the responsibility, family
send their elderly parents to old age homes and other institutions to take care. Adults expect
that after paying these care institutions, the responsible of institutions becomes an obligation.
However, despite of payment made by the family, the elderly people suffers from the abuse
and neglect in nursing homes. Growing in the number of old aged homes and increasing in

ABUSE AND NEGLECTS IN ELDERLY: 3
demand of institutional care providers have just become a source of making money (Pillemer,
Burnes, Riffin, & Lachs, 2016).
The abuse can be either intentional or intentional. The abuse may relate to physical
abuse, through either omission or commission, which is referred to as neglect act,
psychological acts including emotional or verbal aggression (Abuse of the elderly, 2018).
Institutional elder abuse refers to mistreatment that happens in residential
homes such as nursing homes, assisted living, and care homes. Generally, people who are
held responsible and have the legal obligation to take care of elderly people the abuses in
institutions. The type of elder abuse in nursing homes and institutions ranges from physical,
emotional, and sexual to isolation and neglect from caregivers. Financial exploitation occurs
when a caregiver tries to take undue advantage and steal the money from patient`s room.
Moreover, elderly may suffer injury, pain, loss that will lead to violation of human rights, and
decreased quality life of elderly people. The behaviour is known as neglecting and ignoring
and disrespecting depends on how frequently this type of mistreatment happens, severity, and
consequences (American psychological Association, 2018). To identify and detect the elderly
abuse and neglect, the perception of families, care providers, and health providers differs
(Aas, 2018). The three broad categories may be-
 Violation of human, medical, and legal rights (Schofield, 2017).
 Disrespect of choices, status, decisions, and finances.
Other exploitation includes depiction and threat of abuse treatment, fear of abandon
by the caretaker, shame, and avoidance of embarrassment contributing to neglect of elderly
people (Glauser, & Hustey, 2016). Exploitation such as-
 Material exploitation- It refers to exploitation where elder people`s money, assets,
property is used without allowing the control. Placing the older person`s health at risk

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by not providing the basic care. Adults do not have mercy in their hearts, older people
with disabilities and frailty, giving improper care, non-nutritional food, and lack of
strength to fight disease, lack of medical care, and lack of love to older people.
Although generational conflicts has been screened in movies, dramas, and plays.
 Financial deprivation- Deprivation of enough resources leads to lack of basic facilities
and ineffective quality of life. This is such a wrong behaviour to hide the basic
facilities from the elderly people. Property grabbing is another wrong behaviour on
the part of adults and making the elderly people homeless. Improper exploitation and
use of money that is owned by an elderly person becomes financial abuse. Elderly
people walking on the roads are the victim of theft, fraud, undue advantage, and
physical coercion, which people do to get personal gain, which is not at all morally
satisfying. Financial abuse of elderly people is seen many times or overtime rather
than a single time. Acts such as robbery, carjacking, and purse snatching are illegal
and denote the financial abuse.
 Isolation and physical pain- Isolation leads to cutting off and separating the elderly
people from the family, social environment and different community activities.
Physical abuse includes physical pain, and injury. Physical tortures such as slapping,
hitting, restraining, bruising, and other types of physical abuse that result in injury and
pain. Sexual abuse, raping an aged woman, sexual molesting are not only physically
abusive, but also is a mental or psychological abusive (Lacher, Wettstein, Senn,
Rosemann, & Hasler, 2016).
 Emotional and psychological torment- Threatening, increasing insecurity, increasing
strain and stress, humiliating behaviour breaks the trust of older people for adults
(Spreng, Karlawish, & Marson, 2016). Verbal humiliation is a kind of emotional
hurting which includes being rude, insulting, disrespectful, and adopting in sensitive

ABUSE AND NEGLECTS IN ELDERLY: 5
behaviour towards the elderly person. Verbal abuse is characterised by imposing
mental torture. This type of mental torture also affects the psychological base of a
person. Humiliation, threats, yelling, eve teasing, and intimidation are some examples
of verbal abuse. Sometimes, adults keep their children away from their grandparents.
These isolating situations cause psychological pressure and distress and even lead to
serious issues such as depression (Hamby, Smith, Mitchell, & Turner, 2016).
The population of older people is the fastest growing population in old-age homes.
Elderly people require care, respect, and love from the society. More often, neglect is
unintentional due to insufficient available staff. Neglect situation occurs when patient`s needs
are not taken care of such as proper medication on time and personal hygiene care. Moreover,
the elders are provided with proper healthy food, clothing, and clean water. Neglect and
misbehaviour on the part of nursing staff suffers from broken bones, frequent infection, signs
of dehydration, unexplained weight loss, changes in mental status, and poor physical status
and lack of hygienic environemt (Dong, Chen, & Simon, 2014).
An elderly person suffers from many types of abuses such as physical abuse, elder
mistreatment, geriatric trauma, non-accidental geriatric injury, and ill-treatment to get a
financial benefit. These abuses lead to stress and frustration along with the other problems.
This stress, frustration, and childish behaviour of elders lead nursing staff members to stay
away even during their sufferings. Three major issues that are closely related to abuse and
neglect of elderly people are neglect, financial exploitation, and physical abuse. The reason
behind the violence and abuse towards elderly people resulted in adult abused by the parent,
responsibility, which has become a force for adults to take care of elderly people (Yan, Chan,
& Tiwari, 2015). Neglect is different form of abuse, which many elderly people suffer from,
due to wrong behaviour on the part of old-aged staff. Continuous neglect over a long time can
cause death. Certain changes in cultural and societal attitudes can contribute to wrong

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behaviour against the elderly people on the part of adults. Modern western culture, lifestyle,
and accommodation in multigenerational household have negative impact on the family
virtues (Davoren et al., 2015). In the above discussion, it has become very clear that risk of
leaving elderly people in nursing homes results in neglect and abuse. Elderly people are given
overdose of medicines and they are often not checked which lead to adverse side effects.
Elderly people in nursing homes are left with no help regarding toileting. Continuous wearing
of same disposable diaper even after urine passes lead to skin breakdown in diaper area. The
lives of these elderly people become immobile due to lack of regular exercise programs. They
live in poor hygiene including bad smell of urine and feces, dirty body odour, overgrown
dirty nails (Texas Health and Human Services, 2018).
Martial violence and generational gap can lead to be become a factor, which adversely
effect on elder abuse. Sometimes, when a woman has been abused for many years, she is not
likely to take care of elder people when their health fails. Expense incurred during the
nourishment and overmedication may lead to abusing elders. These financial burdens of
medication and generational households can lead to trigger elder abuse. Such situation of lack
of resources with the adults becomes difficult to pay and render the medication. Many adults
who were badly treated in their childhood treat their elderly parents with respect. There may
be a marital stress between the older couple when they live with their adults (Abuse of the
elderly, 2018).
Logical and sequential arrangement of arguments and discussions
These days, older people are more active, visible, and independent than before. They
are living a better life without their children in much better conditions. However, as the world
population is increasing, so does the number of old aged homes and institutional care
providers (Jackson, 2016). There are certain cultural morals, believe system and traditions,
which directly or indirectly influence the family dynamics, generational relationships, and the

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challenges regarding roles and responsibilities of adults. Society has forgotten the
significance of providing the dignity, support, non-abusive life to every elder person.
Sometimes the older person is kept either locked or separated from the children, which is not
at less than neglectful situation. People who notices these abusive things apart from the
family members fail to intervene or take any action because they believe that they should not
interrupt in other`s family issues and even they are afraid of misinterpreting a private fights.
Shame and embarrassment on the part of adult people makes it difficult for elder people to
reveal the neglect and abuse. Moreover, elder people are not involved in events in the family
(Huang, Tsai, Liu, & Chen, 2017).
Some elder non-indigenous people such as tribal people, aboriginal people, and
Torres strain islanders face language barriers and financial dependence on the adults. The
definition of abuse and neglect in elderly people vary across different culture and religious
communities. It is mandatory to ignore such signs of abuse, which sounds unethical or
abusive by they are not. Some cultures do not respect the basic human and women rights, old
women don`t realise the importance of basic rights may not even realise that they are abused.
In order to solve these problems related to neglect and abuse of elderly people (Roy, 2017).
The society has to promote social attitude, positive steps regarding achieving
educational goals for elder people. The adults should develop and increase the availability of
relief care, promote social contact and support from the families. Moreover, to promote social
attitude, the society can take steps such as educating people about their ignorance, which are
subjected to physical abuse, sexual abuse, psychological abuse, and emotional abuse. Old age
homes should promote social meetings through various events such as conducting workshops,
sports meet, religious sessions, theatre sessions on different plays and recreational sessions on
yoga, exercises. Promotion of increased social contact, support from families, counselling

ABUSE AND NEGLECTS IN ELDERLY: 8
sessions to treat elderly people with personal and family problems will help to the elder
people to feel a support socially (Pradeep, & Raj, 2016).
Various counselling sessions contribute to overcome the fear of abuse and neglect
from adults. Acceptance and understanding is biggest power especially in relationships. To
maintain any relationship, both the individual in the relationship has to bend towards each
other. Each individual has to adjust in a relationship. Moreover, the intensity of respect, love,
and care in the relation to elder parents on the part the adult becomes a responsibility
(Hamby, Smith, Mitchell, & Turner, 2016).
According to WHO, it estimated around 15.7% people of 60 years and older than 60
years are subjected to abuse. These prevailing rates are mostly underestimated, as many elder
abuse cases are not reported. WHO agrees on metrics, measures, solutions, and analytical
approaches for healthy people. WHO tries to improve the intrinsic capacity and functional
abilities for the whole life in different sectors such as health and social sector. To accomplish
these approaches, WHO planned to work with range of stakeholders to develop manuals and
normative tools and undertake an advance research on sufferings of elderly people (WHO,
2018).
To overcome the problems related to Ignorance and misbehaviour among the elderly
people led to formation of certain policies such as various public and professional campaigns,
school-based intergenerational programmes, caregivers training (WHO, 2018). Apart from
these campaigns, the statistics in world health organisation related to abuse lead to the
formation of policies in different countries such as the Australian network for prevention of
elderly abuse in 1998, New Zealand National Elder Abuse and Neglect Advisory Council in
1990s, International Network for the Prevention of Elder Abuse (INPEA) in 1997. In UK,
Actions on Elder Abuse, which is a national non-governmental organisation focused to

ABUSE AND NEGLECTS IN ELDERLY: 9
overcome the problem of isolation, social exclusion, and abandonment (Hoover, & Polson,
2014).
Conclusion
From the above discussion it can be concluded that, the elderly people has been
suffering from the abuse and neglect since last many decades. The adult should realise the
importance of dignity, respect, and love for the elderly parents. Elderly abuses have taken
different form such as physical abuse, verbal abuse, psychological abuse, and financial abuse.
To resolve the problem of elderly abuse and ignorance, counselling for neglected behaviour
and personal problems of elderly people can give them moral support by listening to them.
Isolation and negligence is more abusing than verbal abusing and has greater probability.
Conducting social interactions for elderly people help them to change the behavioural
patterns of elderly people as they start finding solution from the current isolations.

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References
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relationships. Journal of elder abuse & neglect, 30(1), 20-41.
Abuse of the elderly, (2018). World report on violence and health. Retrieved from:
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American psychological Association, (2018). Elder abuse and neglect: in search of solutions.
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Davoren, M., Fitzpatrick, M., Caddow, F., Caddow, M., O’Neill, C., O’Neill, H., & Kennedy,
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Huang, L. B., Tsai, Y. F., Liu, C. Y., & Chen, Y. J. (2017). Influencing and protective factors
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