Knowing the signs of elder abuse is important, but even more important is to stop it before it even begins. This is, of course, a much harder task and is sometimes even impossible. This can be partially done by picking a caregiver that you wholeheartedly trust. If you are going with a trusted family member, this is perhaps your easiest task. But if your loved one needs the care of an outside service provider, this becomes just a bit more difficult to do.

This is why screening the services that you ultimately narrow your search down to is so important. You want to make sure that you have a mutual understanding with whomever you select to administer care and you want to have faith in them to perform in the most professional manner possible. This is why many services have their employees bonded, insured, and checked out before they are sent out into the field. They want to make sure that they are stand-up citizens and will do what they are supposed to do.

If elder abuse does occur, you need to be aware of the warning signs and you need to know what to do to stop the abuse from continuing. If your loved one has unexplained bruises or broken bones, this is a tell tale sign of physical abuse. Being withdrawn or unusually shy is a sign of mental abuse. Other types of abuse can come in the shape of intimidation, where your loved one is not actually physically hurt in any way, but they are afraid of their caregiver. Financial abuse also sometimes occurs. If your loved one has many unexplained transactions on their bank statement, this might have occurred.

Oftentimes, the victim won't be open about the abuse. This is why you need to be careful attention and be willing to ask the questions that they might not think to ask themselves.

The first step would be to alert the management of the caregiver and alert them that you will be calling the police to further investigate the matter. You want to call the management first in order to have them prepared and also so they might take appropriate actions with the violating employee so that other senior citizens are not injured or abused in any way.

Calling the police might sound like overkill, but alerting the authorities is a good way to have a thorough investigation conducted. The service or agency that you go through might not be completely equipped to handle something of this magnitude, so you want a party that is qualified to find answers for you on your side. This is the whole purpose of having a police force to begin with.