Senin, 22 April 2019

How To Put A Stop To Elder Abuse

By Susan Morris


With age comes the downward spiral of physicality, mobility, and other physiological functions. The seniors are also held down by their feelings of dependence, fear of retaliation, hope for change, and other similar sentiments. Anyone with an ounce of morality and ethics in them would be all afire to stop this trend from continuing to up in statistics. Therefore, everyone should join in the efforts to raise awareness and put a stop on elder abuse.

You can probably imagine why this is a thing. Elders have come to be physiologically and sometimes mentally and psychologically weaker than other people. Their overt reliance and dependence have placed them at the mercy of persons who think that they can do whatever they want without the fear of consequences. If one has an ounce of ethics and virtue, then it does not take some deep thinking to know that this is unethical and heavily culpable. However, this does not seem to influence the trends going the whole world over.

Where were talking about this happening, it mostly has to do with an aggressor that the victim knows, like a family member, caretaker, or any person that the victim has reason to be indebted or dependent to. And then, of course, there are also instances where the elder may lie and make up accusations. As you can probably appreciate, the challenges are great and many here.

However, one has many nitty gritty to keep in mind. After all, its not uncommon for the senile to make false accusations. That applies to all kinds of infringements. That is why the accused are generally considered innocent until proven guilty, which is just as well. That does not downplay the plight of victims, but that mainly exhorts the need for a thorough investigation of all pending reports.

Aside from that, you have emotional and psychological maltreatment. That comes with humiliating or distressing a person. Perhaps the aggressor may be using an emotional bait to threaten or coerce the elder. Verbal invectives, such as in name calling, ridiculing, yelling, blaming, and some such are considered as part of it. There are more nebulous involvements as well, like if the caretaker somehow ignores, shuns, and withdraws from the elder, causing emotional upheavals and distress.

The boundaries of this phenomenon are quite wide and expansive, even more so than child abuse. After all, the last can be done by just about any person, even though they are not consanguine relatives or caretakers of the child. However, what often characterizes elder maltreatment is that it involves a caretaker or a person in a position of power over the victim. You can appreciate the rife technicalities here, which contributes to the fact of it being hard to root out and solve.

Theres also neglect, wherein the senior is deprived of care, basic necessities, creature comforts, and medical treatment. This is answerable to, whether intentional or passive. And then you have sexual abuse. Cases are numerous since there are some elders who are expressly unable to give consent in participating in such acts, whether direct or in promiscuous ways, such as getting them to engage in conversations that they would otherwise have found objectionable.

Aside from the many acts and actions that may be considered a part of it, one must also keep in mind the things that are not considered such. For example, general criminal activity, like muggings, burglary, and some such are not considered representative of it. It displays power play, of course, but it can also happen to just about anyone. Therefore, whatever the outcome, the charges are different, and they are not often headed with elderly abuse.

The challenges in this enterprise are uncountable. There are great, many barriers in obtaining the needed statistics. The worse kinds are the abuses that are hidden and committed in privacy. It could also be that the victim himself or herself is unwilling to report and testify. In cases of cognitive decline, like dementia, authorities may be inclined not to take them seriously. The challenges, then again, are great and numerous. However, with societal force, they can be overcome.




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