Literature Review:
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Elderly Care

Introduction: Approximately 90% of people who take advantage of the elderly are their own family members. Elder abuse has a negative impact on the victimized elders worldwide. It is defined as intentional actions that cause harm or create a serious risk of harm (whether or not harm is intended) to a vulnerable elder by a caregiver or other person who stands in a trust relationship to the elder. This includes failure by a caregiver to satisfy the elder’s basic needs or to protect the elder from harm (Bonnie, R, & Wallace, R Eds., 2003). Although there is a lack of statistical information of elder abuse, there are sources that provide proof that elder abuse is a bigger issue than people perceive it to be. It can occur in many forms such as physical, emotional, financial and sexual abuse. In this paper, the question being investigated is “How knowledgeable are Barbadians on the effects of elder abuse?” The following literature reviews attempts to answer this question.
Review of Findings: Each literature piece that has been reviewed pointed out that elder abuse is a major issue and is a topic that is given little recognition or response. According to Penny Bain and Charmaine Spencer, 2014, about 80% of abuse or neglect of older adults is hidden or goes undetected in Canada. Only about one in five cases of abuse come to the attention of community agencies or authorities. The article goes on to describe that it is such because in most cases the elders have grown accustom to the abuse resulting in the impression that it is a custom or it is their own faults that cause the abuse and they are afraid of the situation being worst after it is reported.
There are a number of reasons behind the action of elder abuse. Most of the literature pieces included some of these causes. As stated by Sally Balch Hurme, J.D, (2004) the main cause of elder abuse is dependence and vulnerability of the victims. If an abuser is the primary caregiver and the caregiver views the dependency of an older adult as burdensome and stress producing, the caregiver may exhibit abusive behavior. If the abuser is not the caregiver, the dependency of an older adult creates vulnerability to persons who seek to exploit dependence. It also lists the lack of knowledge of the care giver on how to properly care for the elderly, especially if that person is ill, as a cause. For example, a person with Alzheimer’s disease who is bedridden may experience unintentional, but devastating abuse if the caregiver does not know how to treat a person with that disease. Another cause which was stated by Jenique Millington, 2009 is the elders being a burden to family members. It states that some of the elders in Barbados are being tied up in homes or placed in abandoned buildings by their families who do not want the responsibility of dealing with them. As persons become older and are unable to continue working and taking care of themselves they may be avoided, mistreated, and considered as a financial burden. There are some serious consequences that are faced as a result of elder abuse. Penny Bain and Charmaine Spencer, 2014 stated many of these in the article. Firstly, long term health issues such as stress which triggers chest pains, ulcers, high blood pressure and the list goes on. Between 44% and 62% of abused older adults experience some level of depression. Up to 6% of abused older adults become severely depressed. Living with abuse and neglect can also significantly increase the person's chances of becoming ill or may make other health problems worse. Also financial abuse leads to ongoing distress and financial strain in the older person's life. Despite the fact that elder abuse is generally unrecognized in Barbados, there are certain actions being put into play and groups formed to help prevent the continuation of abuse in the future. For example, Matthew Farley, 2012 discussed the formation of GenLink, which started as an initiative between Garrison Secondary and the Geriatric Hospital but it has since been extended to other primary and secondary schools, which aims to build a bridge between the younger and older generation in order to instill a positive attitude among the young people for the elderly. This is done by having hospital personnel educate the youths about issues pertaining to ageing through lectures and exposing the students to career opportunities in the field of gerontology. Also the students are brought face-to-face with the elderly by occasionally visiting the hospital where, if no diseases and/or illnesses are present, they can interact and socialize with each other.
Conclusion:
It can be concluded that Barbadians need to become more aware of elder abuse in the country. The majority of research done was found from sources outside of Barbados and outside of the Caribbean for that matter, therefore, I suggest that more local researchers should take it upon themselves to invest time in gathering statistics on elderly abuse within the nation and look into the factors influencing this abuse and come up with ways to control these factors.
There are a number of things we can do to promote the awareness of elder abuse in Barbados: A National Elder Abuse Act can create a nationwide structure for raising public awareness and supporting research, create an entity to explore and develop innovate programs and policies to improve research, data collection and reporting on elder abuse and also, increase awareness with the justice system of abuse as a priority crime issue.
“Abused or neglected older adults have a 200% increased risk of early death. The stress of living in an abusive situation shortens older people’s lives by several years on average.” (Penny Bain and Charmaine Spencer, 2014)Something needs to be done.

References

Bonnie, R, & Wallace, R (Eds.), 2003. Elder mistreatment: Abuse, neglect and exploitation in an aging America. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

Jenique Millington 2009, The Barbados Advocate, p.10

Matthew D. Farley, 2012, The Nation News, The Candid Corner

Sally Balch HurmeJ.D.,Review on Perspectives on Elder Abuse, AARP Available from: http://assets.aarp.org/www.aarp.org_/articles/international/revisedabusepaper1.pdf (2004)

Penny Bain and Charmaine Spencer, World Elder Abuse Awareness Day Available from: http://www.gov.pe.ca/photos/original/senior_weaad.pdf (2014)