Elder Abuse Essay

What would you do if you discovered that your grandmother is being treated unfairly in the nursing home where she is staying? For many years, elderly people are abused in their own homes and even in facility homes. Elder abuse is a negligent act by a caregiver that causes risk of harm to a vulnerable adult that can take various forms of abuse such as emotional, physical, financial, sexual and so forth, and it can be intentional or unintentional. As elders become more physically fragile they are less able to stand up for themselves and defend themselves. One way to prevent unfair treatment of elderly people in retirement homes is social contact and support for the elder. Although this is a reasonable solution, public policy making is the best one.

Most of the researches about elder abuse for the last fifteen years have focused more on domestic violence. It is estimated that about 4% of the elder population are exposed to abuse in Finland, USA, and Canada (Kivelä, Köngäs-Saviaro, Kesti, Pah-kala, & Ijäs, 1992; Pillemer & Finkelhor, 1988; Podneiks, 1992). Elder abuse tends to happen more often in homes where the abusers are family members such as the elder’s spouse or grandchildren. Abusing elderly people can involve a threat against the elder, neglect, intimidate, financial fraud, physical, emotional and sexual abuse. Among these types of elder abuse financial abuse followed by neglect is the most commons. For instance, a financial abuse often begins after a health crisis, or with people who are alone or in poor health conditions causing them to be vulnerable. Consider this problem is important because giving an unfair treatment to a person of whatever age is against human rights, and any action concerning elder abuse weather ...

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...and social environments, safety, some skills, appropriate health care and support services. They also can get the knowledge of their own rights, family relationships, and acknowledge past reports of abuse. Therefore an efficient way will be created to reduce or even eradicate the unfair treatment of elder abuse.

All in all, no human being has the right to receive an unfair treatment, much less those who are more vulnerable. It can exist various forms to prevent elder abuse, but not all of them are efficient. They still can give some help, but they cannot reach the eradication of the problem. However, we can start to reduce and regulate the situation better with little steps that can be a simple conversation or support not only with the person who is being abused but with everyone in order to educate them so they can start to take action and know how to defend them.