NSG 4067 Week 5 Discussion

Psychological abuse entails cases where the caregiver humiliates and handles older people without respect. Notably, in most cases, this type of abuse is characterized by name-calling and harsh disregard for the older adult’s opinion. Abolishing this type of abuse is coupled with myriad challenges, including recognizing signs of occurrence since there is no physical evidence in most cases. Moreover, this abuse is mainly perpetrated by caregivers, and older people are likely to normalize it and might find it hard to report it. Although psychological maltreatment has detrimental effects, including instigating mental problems, WHO (2017) highlights it as the most under-registered form of elderly abuse.

Financial elder abuse occurs when an individual, primarily a family member, misappropriates the resources of older people or uses economic power to subdue older people. Unlike other forms of abuse, financial abuse is subtle, hard to notice, and thus challenging to abolish. Further, according to WHO (2017), curbing financial abuse is complicated because the perpetrators are closely attached to older people, such as caregivers or family members. In some cases, the older adult does not know about its occurrence; thus, no reporting occurs.

NSG 4067 Week 5 Discussion

Key Strategies to advocate and protect older people from psychological and financial abuse include encouraging the community members to help by heightening scrutiny for plausible abuse cases and reporting them to the authorities. As such, community members should be taught the signs manifest in psychological abuse, such as observing behavior changes in older people. In this case, increased fearfulness, uncommunicative tendencies, and isolation, among others, should be taken to signify the possibility of psychological abuse. On the other hand, Manifestations of financial abuse include massive withdraws from the elderly accounts and sudden issues of unpaid bills.

The community members should also be encouraged to observe behavioral change by the caregiver. In this regard, inhibiting visitors to older people and cases whereby the caregiver portrays indifference and heightened hostility to the elder, such as name-calling, should also warrant a report of possible elderly financial or psychological abuse. Further, I would encourage the need for the authorities and other agencies involved with older people to take any reported suspicion seriously and take immediate action to curtail the abuse and accrued effects on older people.