RetirementHomes.com - Elder Abuse

The biggest warning signs for elder abuse

aadmin — Sun, 27 Dec 2015 08:50:06 +0000

Unfortunately, elder abuse isn't a minor problem. Studies have shown that over two million elder Americans are victims of elder abuse, while for every case of abuse reported, as many as five go unreported. As a caregiver for elder adults, nothing can be as disheartening than the suspicion that someone is the victim of abuse. But understanding - and recognizing - the signs of abuse can keep it from becoming an ongoing problem. While such abuse can take many forms, it can usually be classified under these categories: physical, sexual, psychological, financial, and neglect.

Physical

The use of physical force that results in injury, pain or impairment is a broad definition of physical abuse. Like abuse in general, it can take many forms, including hitting, shoving, slapping, shaking, kicking, pinching and burning. Signs of physical abuse include:

Injuries with no easily explainable cause that are incompatible with the victim's medical history, such as cuts, lacerations, bruises, welts and discoloration.
Injuries that appear to have been caused by cigarettes, caustics, or friction from ropes, chains or other objects.
Injuries in areas covered by clothing.
A combination of new and old injuries.
Denial of an injured state.

Sexual

Sadly, this form of abuse happens in older adults. Signs of it include genital or anal infections, difficulty while walking or sitting, or bruising of the inner thighs.

Psychological

This type of abuse can be harder to detect than others, in part because it can be part of other aging, medical, mental or physical problems. But it can be detected by observing the actions of others, including family members. Are threats being made to an elderly parent? Or, perhaps someone speaks poorly of the person on a consistent basis, or ignores him or her and their needs. The victim, meanwhile, may seem depressed or withdrawn, or unwilling to talk openly and freely.

Financial

Financial abuse is not an insignificant problem, as studies have shown that 12 percent of all elderly abuse is of this kind. It can be defined as improper or illegal use of an elder's assets, and it can entail:

Social security or pension checks cashed without permission.
Coercing or deceiving the elder into parting with money or property.
Diverting guardianship assets.
A family member who is not willing to pay for an elder's basic needs when money is available.
A warning sign could involve a family member who persistently seeks financial control while being financially stressed themselves. Or, also if bank statements are no longer coming to the victim's home.

Neglect

Neglect can take many forms, including not providing food, medicines, hygiene, or even personal safety. Signs of neglect include:

Neglected bedsores, skin conditions or rashes.
Untreated injuries or other medical issues.
Hunger, malnutrition or dehydration.
Poor hygiene
Lack of clean clothing and bedding.
Poor skin condition
An excessively dirty environment than may smell of feces or urine.

It's important to know the most common types of elder abuse and the forms they take. It's also important to note that people who suffer from Alzheimer's or dementia are at a greater risk of abuse and neglect. As a caregiver, understanding the signs and facts of elder abuse can help stop and prevent it.

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Elder Abuse

Top tips for preventing elder abuse

aadmin — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 17:57:58 +0000

This week is Elder Abuse Awareness Week around the world, and RetirementHomes.com is producing a series of articles to help educate the general public about this form of abuse.

Yesterday, RetirementHomes.com published an article about the top warning signs of elder abuse that loved ones can watch out for. But before that happens, are there ways to prevent, or at least reduce the odds of elder abuse happening to yourself, or to a family member?

Steven Horen, founder and CEO of Koved Care LLC, a home healthcare agency based in New York City, told RetirementHomes.com that caregivers and care aides are the likeliest perpetrators when it comes to physical and sexual abuse against seniors, and that knowledge can help people avoid caregivers who may be at a higher risk of committing elder abuse.

According to Horen, many people who may find the cost of homecare unaffordable are likely to hire caregivers off the books, but that comes with added risk.

“The vast majority of physical abuse and theft happens when people hire privately, not through an agency, and when they do not do thorough due diligence on the people that they are hiring,” Horen said. “When you hire through a reputable agency, you have a much higher level of confidence that appropriate background checks have been done and ongoing objective oversight of the staff.”

Still, if a retirement community or in-home care is not an option for your parent or loved one, and hiring privately is the only alternative, you can still perform background checks with local municipal and state or provincial authorities to determine if the caregiver candidate has anything in their history that would be concerning, including potential convictions for assault.

Once a family member has suspicions about an elderly loved one, and whether they may be a victim of elder abuse, vigilance is the first step, according to Brad Robinson, a former CIA agent and Senior Partner of The Millennium Group, a private investigations firm based in West Palm Beach, Florida.

“In our experience, the allegations of elder abuse, nine times out of ten, turn out to be justified, and only in ten per cent of cases are the allegations either proven to be false or inconclusive,” Robinson told RetirementHomes.com. “And proving the negative is hard…some cases were cancelled for financial or other reasons, and I think some percentage of that ten per cent would have borne fruit” with more time to investigate, he said.

So if it’s time for your parent or loved one to find an in-home caregiver, or a senior living community, start by asking for referrals, and then doing your homework on the person – or place – that you are considering.

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How to Search for Warning Signs of Elder Abuse

aadmin — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 17:39:01 +0000

The warning signs of elder abuse aren't always obvious.

Melissa Kahn of Kahn HealthCare Consulting, LLC, sees the signs in a more subtle way. “It’s a slow process,” she says. “Most people don’t go into the caregiving experience intending to neglect or abuse another person.”

The developer of programs in aging, healthcare, and Alzheimer’s care warns against the prevailing concept of physical elder abuse. There’s also emotional abuse and financial abuse.

Family caregivers can be emotionally depleted which can lead to unintended neglect because of a lack support and/or respite. Kahn concludes that many abuses arise from caregivers’ difficult financial situations, lack of caregiver tools or being emotionally exhausted.

Substance abuses, a loss of a job, a health-related issue can also be contributing stressors that can contribute to elder abuse.

“It starts off subtly and it doesn't necessarily look like abuse right away.”

Tell-tale signs of abuse are:

• Medications not administered or purchased due to financial hardship
• Meals provided irregularly because the caregiver can't get away to buy groceries
• Caregiver stress can lead to elder people becoming more withdrawn
• Verbal abuse, especially when caregivers deal with family members with a dementia-related illness (because of lack of education on how to communicate effectively)

Kahn, who is a care consultant and has worked in aging and healthcare for more than 25 years, feels that spousal caregivers often fail to pick up on the subtle nuances that others see because of lack of support or caregiver educational resources.

Understanding how to care for someone with memory problems doesn't come naturally. Getting support is key to addressing issues of wandering, difficult behaviors and/or communication challenges.

Spousal abuse can occur by giving responsibilities to a partner who can’t deal with it, such as driving a car resulting in an accident. “Control doesn’t work; it doesn’t solve the problem,” says Kahn. Getting help from a care consultant to address driving issues is important.

Knowing how to best address driving/transportation options can minimize potential accidents and help the person keep their independence for as long as possible. Helping loved ones make important decisions can avoid situations that could turn into neglect or abuse. There has to be a plan for taking away the car keys from a person with a cognitive disorder. That’s a warning sign that develops over time.

Families may suspect elder abuse, but according to Kahn, "They don’t want to offend a fellow family member or hurt somebody’s feelings, until it gets out of control." Then, the more obvious signs, like bruising, may appear.

A financial warning sign can be when a family member always shows up on the day when a parent gets a social security check. The rest of the family can persuade the parent to opt for direct deposit. When the physical tools of finance are removed, like checkbooks, financial fraud by a family member can be obstructed.

The 'warning signs' of elder abuse are not always clear. Kahn's approach is to look at underlying issues to get support in place to prevent situations before they happen.

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Who is most at risk of elderly abuse?

aadmin — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 17:25:20 +0000

This coming Saturday, June 15, is World Elder Abuse Awareness Day. To recognize this serious issue, RetirementHomes.com is producing a series of articles this week to discussing the phenomenon of elder abuse, its causes, warning signs, and its solutions.

Elder abuse is any act which causes harm or distress to an older person, whether it is a regular occurrence or a single act, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). It can also be, according to the WHO, the absence of action, namely neglect and abandonment.

Although there are no hard statistics on the extent of elder abuse, in part because many seniors who suffer never report their experiences, most estimates say between four and six per cent of seniors have been victims of elder abuse at some point in their lives.

But elder abuse is not a monolithic term. In fact, elder abuse takes many forms, including financial abuse, physical abuse, psychological abuse, or sexual abuse.

Dr. Carole Lieberman, a Beverly Hills, California-based psychiatrist and expert witness, told RetirementHomes.com that the likely perpetrators of elder abuse varies depending on the type of elder abuse committed.

When adult children are the perpetrators of elder abuse, it is likely to be an example of pent-up anger against their parent, according to Lieberman.

“Adult children are more likely to be perpetrators of financial and emotional abuse, neglect and abandonment,” Lieberman said.

“Typically, these adult children are carrying resentments from childhood towards their parent and use the parent's vulnerability against them to get back at them for the love and attention they felt deprived of growing up.”

Both sexual and physical abuses, for example, are typically committed by professional caregivers and other medical professionals and institutions who have a more detached relationship to the senior, Lieberman said.

In all cases of elder abuse, there is a strong dynamic of power at play, according to Lieberman, where the abuser – whether it’s an adult child, spouse, or medical professional – takes advantage of the weakness, fear or vulnerability of the senior.

To help prevent the abuse of yourself, or an elderly loved one, Lieberman said there are steps that can be taken for protection before anything happens.

“Seniors need to arm themselves with a plan before they become the target of abuse,” Lieberman said. “This plan should include deciding which family members are most trustworthy and most likely to come to their aid, as well as assembling a cadre of attorneys, accountants and other professionals to work with.”

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Does this video show elder abuse?

aadmin — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 14:21:13 +0000

A new video purporting to show elder abuse is making the rounds online. As reported by OCWeekly.com, the video was posted to YouTube in December, 2012, and has since garnered nearly 150,000 views. It shows an elderly, wheelchair-bound woman being helped into a car by a man, seemingly her son, at 2 o’clock in the morning.

Sam Wilson, who filmed the video, wrote in the video description that the elderly woman has been seen at the UCI Town Center in Irvine, California on a regular basis for the last six years, begging for money and claiming to be homeless.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQaB-T4iym8

Wilson says he was told by a security guard at the UCI Town Center that the seemingly homeless woman would be regularly picked up late at night by a man, appearing to be in his 40s and claiming to be her son, and so Wilson waited late one night to see for himself.

In the video, Wilson confronts the man, who immediately takes out his own video camera. “Why are you exploiting her? This is elder abuse,” Wilson says. The man becomes angered at Wilson, and threatens to sue him for harassment.

What do you think? Is this video am example of elder abuse, or a misunderstanding? Tell us about it in the comment section below:

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Elder abuse is a growing challenge

aadmin — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 15:47:25 +0000

Many of the issues surrounding North America’s aging population are familiar: how to live a healthy life, how to save enough money for retirement, and what are the cheapest retirement destinations, to name just a few topics. But one of the most pressing issues among both today’s seniors, and Baby Boomers – the seniors of tomorrow – is the topic of elder abuse.

As reported recently by the Associated Press newswire, the number of people aged 65 and over in North America is set to double to nearly 150 million people by 2030, and a growing number of them are suffering abuse, whether at the hands of family members or caregivers. The abuse can appear in many forms, including physical, emotional, verbal, or financial.

“It's a huge issue, and it's just going to get bigger,” Sharon Merriman-Nai of the Clearinghouse on Abuse and Neglect of the Elderly, based at the University of Delaware, told the news wire. She cited research that as many as one in ten seniors have suffered some form of elder abuse.

And while the challenge is great, senior living communities are looking for solutions.

One Ohio assisted living community, Shalom Center, for example, offers a ‘virtual shelter’ where abused seniors can have a respite while case workers are sorting out their file.

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Have you suffered from age discrimination?

aadmin — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 14:00:58 +0000

Despite North America’s aging population, many seniors suffer from discrimination related to their age, according to a recent article in the Sacramento Bee newspaper, citing a survey from Canadian senior living provider Revera Inc.

The survey found that 63 per cent of respondents reported being treated wrongly as a result of their age. But despite those numbers, the survey also found that half of all respondents acknowledged that ageism – discrimination related to age – is the most tolerated of all societal prejudices.

“It's troubling that ageism is so pervasive, in a time when society needs to evolve to meet the needs of an aging population,” Jeff Lozon, Revera’s president and CEO, is quoted as saying. “Building an age-inclusive society must be a top priority for all of us as our demographics change.”

Revera discovered that the most common types of ageism include seniors being dismissed or ignored, being treated and spoken to as if they are useless, and seniors being treated and spoken to as if they are incompetent and inept.

As for the culprits, the newspaper quoted the study as finding that while more than half of those guilty of ageism come from younger individuals, significant numbers of senior say they have faced ageism from healthcare and government workers.

Ageism is a significant problem, especially for an aging society. What do you think? Can Ageism - which is a form of elder abuse - be defeated in North America? Tell us about it in the comment section below.

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