The issue has come to the attention of the media and consumers, especially in recent years. Contrary to popular belief, many elderly victims of physical abuse perform high functioning. The abuser is usually a family member, often the adult child of the victim. The abuser may be a long-term dependant of the victim because of financial or issues and may take out anger for this dependence on the elderly victim.
Globally, the number of major abuse cases is projected to increase as many countries have a rapidly aging population whose needs cannot be fully met due to resource scarcity.
Major concern boils down to how can this be prevented or dealt with!
There are several important things we can do to prevent major abuse:
-We can reduce the risk of major misuse by putting systems in place that can prevent abuse from the beginning.
For example, we can create community support and services for caregivers and older people that can reduce the risk factors associated with elder abuse.
-Report abuse or suspected to Adult Protectives
-Educate yourself and others and how to identify and report elder abuse.
-Ask the community or religious leaders to talk about major exploitation on an incident, or in the bulletin in the newspaper to give a message about elder abuse on their website.
-We can identify ways to empower older people through senior centers and inter-regional programs.
Every initiative to help counts, and means the world to the one who might have been suffering way too much.
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