New research is saying that seniors who suffer elder abuse are more likely to be women, to have a neurological or mental disorder and to abuse drugs or alcohol.
In the study, they compared 41 cases of elder abuse to a controlled group of patients over the age of 60, who were treated between ’99 and ’06. The results were 29 percent of abuse victims tested positive for alcohol compared to the 13 percent of the control group.
They also found that the abuse victims were more likely to have pre-existing medical conditions such as dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, mental illness, alcohol abuse, and heart disease.
After treatment, about half of the victims returned to the place where the abuse took place. In most cases, the abuser had been arrested, but about 17 percents of the victims said they wanted to return to the person who abused them and not to press any charges. In 85 percent of elder abuse case, a family member or an intimate partner of the victim was the perpetrator.
A majority of the abuse cases weren’t identified until after the patient had been admitted or had spent a couple of days in the hospital. This shows that the failure of medical staff to recognize cases of abuses needs to be vastly improved.
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