Since it goes unreported, elder abuse has become a major social evil

Do you know that elder abuse can take five different forms?

Do you also know that a large number of these cases go unreported?

What is even more heartbreaking is the attitude of family members or neighbours. They may be aware of what is happening but may choose to look the other side. The cases of elderly abuse continue.

Dr Romeo Vitelli writing in Psychology Today says, “Among the various reasons many elders have for not reporting what is happening to them are feelings of embarrassment, believing that they are somehow responsible for their abuse, fear of retaliation, fear of being placed in a nursing home, not believing that help is available for them, or simply accepting that long-term abuse is “the way it’s always been” and just putting up with it.”

So, what are these common forms of abuse?

1.Emotional abuse: The most common suffering inflicted on elderly is emotional or psychological. Such suffering leaves no physical scars. But it traumatises the elderly. The abuse is unrelenting, and more often than not it is the immediate family that inflicts this abuse. The abusive actions include refusal to listen, denial of requests, yelling, angry retorts, even threats and intimidation.

2. Physical abuse: Such abuse is not very common but it does happen. The worst cases of such abuse include slapping, shoving, punching or hitting. Such abuse happens when adult children find it difficult to manage their parents especially those parents who are affected by dementia or Alzheimer’s and become an emotional strain for the family. However, such behaviour amounts to cruelty and cannot be justified by any stretch of imagination.

3. Financial abuse and exploitation: There are cases of adult children, nephews or caretakers taking advantage of elders whose mental faculties start declining. Elders may be duped into transferring their property. There can be embezzlement or misuse of funds by people whom the elders have trusted but who now have started abusing this trust. The financial abuse especially happens in those homes where the adult children are financially dependent upon their parents.

4. Neglect or abandonment: This is another form of cruelty that family members inflict. They start excluding their elders from their activity. For instance, elders are asked to eat in their rooms while the rest of the family gathers around a dining table. The elders are excluded from family dos. Little attention is paid to keeping their rooms clean or making sure that they wear clean and proper clothes. Food may be served to them in chipped utensils. There are also cases of elderly parents being thrown out of their homes. They are either left to fend for themselves on streets or else dumped on the doors of an old-age home.

5. Sexual abuse: This is the most embarrassing of all indignities that the elders may suffer. Generally, such inappropriate behaviour may happen when spouses start falling apart.

The rampant elderly abuse has become a social evil that the government and the civil society needs to fight.

Read: ‘At times I am overwhlemed by the misery and heartbreak that I see’