Grandma's Broken Glasses - Recognizing and Preventing Elder Abuse
September 24, 2007
Gina M. Barry, Esq.
All people, regardless of age or infirmity, deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. Being safe from physical, emotional and financial harm is a basic human right. Each year millions of seniors in the United States fall victim to people who abuse their trust and need. Abuse in public forums, such as nursing homes, is widely recognized, but alarmingly, elder abuse primarily occurs in the most private of settings, the elder's home, where abuse is least likely to be recognized by outsiders who could intervene and provide help.
The overwhelming majority of elder abuse occurs at the hands of family members, other household members and paid caregivers. These people have the closest contact with their victims, which puts them in an ideal position to inflict abuse, neglect or exploitation. Unfortunately, the very situation that requires elderly people to rely on others - their dependence upon another - is often the single most contributing factor to the abuse. The physical presence of someone so dependent within a family's home changes the dynamics of that home, as lifestyles must be adjusted. This causes additional stress within a unit that already has its own internal stresses, which is especially enhanced when there has been a history of abuse in a family. Often, abusive parents are abused by their children if they become dependent upon them, but clearly this is not always the case.
Abuse comes in many different forms. ...
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by: Gina M. Barry
Prime
October 2007
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