How to Spot Elder Abuse in Your Senior Friend or Family Member

When you think of Senior Abuse your first thought is probably a lonely lady sitting in a decrepit nursing home room, with bruises on her face right? Although that could happen, Senior abuse takes many silent forms. As the Seniors grow in number in the United States and Canada, the instances of Senior abuse has also grown. In this article I will discuss several forms of abuse, the symptoms, how to report it, and what we can do to prevent it in our loved ones?

Being a former CNA (Certified Nurses Assistant) at a rehabilitation facility, I learned how to spot blatant abuse, and there are some things you don't even realize are abuse. I remember working for a certain facility, and remembering residents sitting on the toilet sometimes for nearly a half an hour, waiting to be helped up. I remember Nurses aides at feeding time when we would be feeding some of our Alzheimer's residents pureed foods, and nurses would mix all the food up into one big food pile.

I questioned this once as to why they do this, and their response was "They don't know the difference." This broke my heart, and this is why I am writing this information down,for others to learn from.

There are five common kinds of abuse: Physical, sexual, financial, mental, and neglect.

Physical abuse is battering or assaulting the patient and/or family member, and inflicting pain and injury (example bruising, bleeding, slapping etc.) Force feeding is also a form of physical abuse.

Sexual abuse is not as common as the other forms of abuse, but it does happen, and because it is not so common it is the most vital to recognize. Sexual abuse is any sexual activity the older person does not consent to, or cannot consent to because they are incapable of giving consent.

Financial abuse occurs when a anyone uses financial funds illegally and without the consent of the owner of the funds whether they be for personal gain or the gain of the owner of the funds.