What Is the Most Common Form of Elder Abuse?

After a long life, working and raising a family, an elderly person deserves to spend their final years in a clean, comfortable environment, with the compassionate care of skilled caregivers and frequent visits from family and friends. Tragically, this isn’t the way the story ends for over five million aging Americans each year who suffer from elder abuse.

All forms of elder abuse are egregious and have devastating and sometimes deadly effects on the victim. It’s essential to understand all aspects of elder and nursing home abuse cases, including the most common and often overlooked form of abuse.

Understanding the Impact of Elder Emotional Abuse

We often think of nursing home abuse as a caregiver hitting, kicking, or shoving an elderly resident. Although this appalling form of elder abuse happens more often than most people imagine, an even more prevalent form of abuse occurs to the elderly at the hands of caregivers and even from family members. According to nursing home abuse lawyers in Atlanta, emotional abuse causes an elderly person to feel shame, embarrassment, and fear, often resulting in emotional withdrawal from family and friends, intentional isolation, and sudden physical and cognitive decline, leading to a shortened life expectancy. Geriatric professionals from the Cleveland Clinic warn:

“Emotional abuse can have a profoundly negative effect on a patient’s quality of life…Particularly in older adults, continued maltreatment can also increase the risk of serious mental health issues like anxiety and depression – which, in turn, can lead to deleterious downstream risks, including cardiovascular disease.”

What Is Elderly Emotional Abuse?

In an alarming survey of 577 elder-care workers, 81% of elder-care nurses and aides admitted to witnessing other staff members commit emotional abuse to the elders in their facilities, including yelling and insulting. The survey also showed that 40% of respondents had committed one or more emotionally abusive behaviors within the past year of the survey date.

Emotional abuse includes the following behaviors:

• Yelling, swearing, and berating
• Name-calling
• Mocking
• Belittling
• Infantilizing (talking to or treating an elder like a child)
• Threatening or intimidating
• Removing access to mobility equipment
• Inflicting intentional isolation as a “punishment”
• Shaming or humiliating
• Blaming and falsely accusing
• Prohibiting visits
• Using the “silent treatment”
• Removing access to communication devices and/or television, books, and puzzles
• Hiding or withholding an elder’s personal items

Emotional abuse also occurs when a caregiver withholds care as a punishment or shames an elderly person for failing to control their bodily functions.

What Are the Other Categories of Elder Abuse?

Emotional abuse may not have effects that are as immediately obvious as other types of elder abuse. Still, it can have severe, detrimental effects that lead to physical decline as well as anxiety and depression.

The types of elder abuse experienced most often in nursing homes and at the hands of other caregivers include the following:

• Emotional abuse as described above
• Neglect, or failing to provide adequate nutrition, hydration, and medical care
• Physical abuse, such as hitting, pushing, kicking, and pinching
• Sexual abuse, or any unwanted touching or penetration
• Financial abuse, such as stealing valuables, accessing financial accounts, or unlawfully using an elderly person’s home, car, and personal belongings

Because elders are not always physically or cognitively capable of reporting abuse, or may choose not to report mistreatment due to feelings of shame, it’s crucial for families to spend time with their elderly loved ones. Families should watch for sudden changes in mood and behavior, or look for signs of physical abuse and neglect. Then it’s imperative to take prompt action to remove the loved one from the situation and report the abuse to authorities.