Elder Abuse Paramedics

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Introduction

When 911 is called regarding an elderly person getting hurt, paramedics are first on the scene. Paramedics need the better training for recognizing, reporting and stopping the cycle of elder abuse. According to Elder abuse Ontario, there are over 2 million elders over the age of 65. Two to ten percent of seniors are abused meaning that there are between 40,000 and 200,000 seniors living in Ontario who have experienced or are experiencing elder abuse (Elder abuse Ontario, 2017).

Background

Elder abuse is the mistreatment towards an elderly individual over the age of 60. According to the Administration on Aging, there are seven basic types of elder abuse: physical, sexual, neglect, exploitation, emotional, abandonment, and …show more content…

There are many reasons for emergency responders failing to report elder abuse such as, they are unclear of the definition of abuse, they are unaware of reporting law, they lack the information about which authority to report to and they may have concerns regarding anonymity. Ninety-five percent of the respondents of a survey stated that training related to elder abuse was not available through their Emergency Medical Services (EMS) agency (Seamon, 1996). In the BLS, it states different ways to manage elder abuse but the descriptions are very brief. Some things it says to do is to alert the hospital staff of any suspicions or to fill out an incident report. A report from the National Institutes of Health suggested that “paramedics and EMT’s lack complete understanding of their role in the identification and reporting of elder abuse” (Walton law firm, …show more content…

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