Elder Abuse – A Review

Abstract

Elder abuse is a general term used to describe harmful treatment to ward an elderly person. This includes physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, financial exploitation and neglect. Elder abuse is a global public health and human rights problem that is predicted to increase as many countries experience a rapid growth in their population of older adults. Elder abuse undermines an older person's well-being and is associated with range of serious health consequences. Elder abuse is recognised worldwide as a serious problem yet quantitative syntheses of prevalence studies are rare. We aimed to quantify and understand prevalence variation at the global and regional levels. In pooled logistic regression, age, race, poverty, functional disability, and cognitive impairment were identified as risk factors for reported elder mistreatment. Additionally, the onset of new cognitive impairment was also associated with elder abuse and neglect. Because the mechanism of elder mistreatment case-finding in this study was a social welfare system protective services, the influence of race and poverty as risk factors is likely to be overestimated due to reporting bias. Elder mistreatment is now recognized internationally as a pervasive and growing problem, urgently requiring the attention of health care systems, social welfare agencies, policymakers, and the general public. In this article, we provide an overview of global issues in the field of elder abuse, with a focus on prevention.