Elder Abuse by Anonymous

Imagine yourself going to visit your most caring and loving grandfather in the most established nursing home your family could find to place him. As your walking down the hallway to his room, delighted to be in his presence and discuss one anothers day, you witness the other elderly residents not being treated to the highest standards that they should be. As you get to your grandfather's room you find him there laying in bed not changed out of the clothes you saw him in yesterday, empty breakfast tray still sitting on his bedside table, reeked of urine, and bed sores starting to sprout on his body. He is not getting the best care. After not trying to over analyze the situation, you come to terms with the fact that this “well established” nursing home isn't too established in taking care of the residents. The most “established” and “trusted” nursing homes can be the most dangerous. Elder abuse can be the outcome of being understaffed, the hiring of non qualified workers or just simple, neglectful people. Once you age to certain points, some aspects of getting things done and moving around can become quite difficult. People need help with their aging bodies and it leaves them vulnerable to abuse. Nearly one in ten american adults aged sixty and up face abuse (“What is elder abuse?” 1). Early identification in elder abuse is the fine key to recognizing the issue at hand, such as letting your patient go without a shower can be a sign of neglect. Elder abuse is more than solvable, little identifiers can be the stop to this horrible concept.

History

An elder is considered to be age 65 years and up, these adults tend to become more reliable on others and can’t completely fend for themselves. These “older adults” represent at least 14% of the U.S population. Although abuse can happen in any setting, domestic, institutional, hospitals and nursing homes; over 60% of the abuse is domestic and only 8% is institutional (Hubert.1). Once these adults become independent in more than one way, they rely on others making them vulnerable to abuse. Abusers can be both a man and woman, in almost 60% of abuse cases the perpetrator is a family member, two thirds of that population are adult children and spouses (NCOA).

Elder abuse first happened in the 1970’s, elderly care had began at least two decades before that. In the 1950’s, congress began to pass acts to assist the elderly. Congress passed legislation of Social Security Act to fund to set up protective service units (Wolf 1).  The public welfare created “protective service units” that would provide new social services, legal assistance and guardianship. During the passing of this act, a team at the Benjamin Rose Institute in Cleveland had conducted a study proved the adults receiving protective services had a higher mortality rate and higher nursing home placement rather than the adults just receiving traditional services (Wolf 1).Social services was used to mandate all adults over the age 18 in the US, temporarily taking focus off of the act. While this was occuring, mid to late 1970’s elder abuse became more apparent during congressional hearings. During a court hearing, a witness spoke about “Granny Battering”, Claude Pepper became interested in the topic and created two projects on elderly abuse. These projects confirmed the abuse cases and the people of the Older Americans Act decided that they could fund the act, although it was in small amounts they were relieved the abuse cases had been brought to attention in the legislation (NCBI).

There are multiple theories to try make people understand why elderly abuse has occurred more often than not since the 1970’s. A “situational theory” would be an overburdened caregiver, these perpetrators also have a past of emotional instability connecting them to psychopathology(Wolf)--which could be another reason to abuse. Learned abuse is also known as “social” abuse, as a child being abused, it makes you see things differently and more times than not people grow up with the same tendencies. The people who faced abuse tend to get retaliation by neglecting or physical abuse, or are just incompetent to care for someone from the carelessness in their childhood. Elderly abuse is something that can't quite be explained

Social Effects

The more the population rises, the more elders we gain. The outside issues of the epidemic can be caused from the overrunning of staff members. The epidemic affects our close loved ones and the whole population of elders. Our elders are not properly taken care of in the communities around us.

Examples

            Elder abuse comes in many different forms. The abuse ranges from physical abuse, mental abuse, neglect, emotional, financial and verbal abuse. Elder abuse cases are usually found with the physically disabled or mentally disabled. The abuser will most likely keep it isolated and well hidden. The perpetrators are more than likely kept to themselves and don’t associate with many people, if they were to keep close contact with others then it would risk them being accused or guilty of crimes they shouldn't be committing. Verbal abuse is the most common kind of abuse, verbal abuse leads to depression, suicidal thoughts and other social effects.  Physical abuse is just as socially effective as verbal abuse. This kind of abuse can also be made up of neglect, bruises, rashes, burns or any other contact that can inflict pain purposely on the individual.

In this case man was sentenced to 15 years -- just 2 of them in prison (Parker). In georgia a man in georgia pleaded guilty to of exploitation and forgery to his own father, this man's father was an 89 year old retired postal service employee. Over a 4 year period a georgia man stole around 90,000 dollars from his father while he had multiple in and out hospital visits. (Parker). Although, this is only financial abuse, it is still a major impact to the father. The son took a reverse mortgage out and ultimately took his father's house away from him. A luxury BMW was purchased alongside his other living expenses (Parker). Financial abuse happens quite often because our elders receive social security monthly and their caretakers feel entitled to that money their parents, siblings of patients are receiving. As we send our loved ones away to facilities to be taken care of, we expect them to receive the best care possible. Well, in this case the best care was not being administered.

Sharon Boulware, 54 of East Texas, was sentenced to ten years in prison for the unlawful act of injury to the elderly (Jones). Sharon took obligation to take care of two elderly patients in her own home. Officials discovered she was not licensed to care for these two elderly individuals. Raymond Davis was a casualty in the care of Sharon, he suffered from bacterial infection and he died after just one hour of leaving Boulware’s household (Jones). Davis also suffered from pneumonia, septic shock and was malnourished. Jewel Russel was also a victim in this turmoil, this elderly lady suffered from bed sores while residing in the Boulware household. Soon after she was taken from this mess she recovered from the bedsores. Jewel survived another three years (Jones).

 The elderly that are victims in these situations leave these cases unreported. They are often times ashamed, embarrassed or intimidated. More often than not  senior citizens make no attempt to leave the situation or request help to help their situations get better. These individuals are at higher chances of having earlier deaths rather than the senior citizens who are being properly cared for and are happy( “Elder Abuse Statistics and Facts | Elder Justice”).