Elder Abuse-Topic Overview Elder abuse refers to any of several forms of maltreatment of an older person by a caregiver, family member, spouse, or friend.

Categories of elder abuse

The 1987 Amendment to the Older Americans Act identified three separate categories of elder abuse:

• Domestic elder abuse usually takes place in the older adult's home or in the home of the caregiver. The abuser is often a relative, close friend, or paid companion.
• Institutional abuse refers to abuse that takes place in a residential home (such as a nursing home), foster home, or assisted-living facility. The abuser has a financial or contractual obligation to care for the older adult.
• Self-neglect is behavior of an older adult that threatens his or her own health or safety. Self-neglect is present when an older adult refuses or fails to provide himself or herself with adequate food, water, clothing, shelter, personal hygiene, medicine, and safety precautions.

Acts of elder abuse

Elder abuse can include:

• Acts of violence, such as hitting, beating, pushing, shoving, shaking, slapping, kicking, pinching, choking, or burning. The inappropriate use of medicines or physical restraints, force-feeding, and physical punishment of any kind also are examples of physical abuse.
• Forced sexual contact or sexual contact with any person incapable of giving consent. It includes unwanted touching and all types of sexual assault or battery, such as rape, sodomy, forced nudity, and sexually explicit photography.
• Emotional or psychological abuse, such as name-calling, insults, threats, intimidation, humiliation, and harassment. Treating an older person like a baby, giving an older person the "silent treatment," and isolating him or her from family, friends, or regular activities are examples of emotional or psychological abuse.
• Neglect, such as failing to provide an older person with food, clothing, personal shelter, or other essentials, such as medical care or medicines. Neglect can also include failing to pay nursing home or assisted-living facility costs for an older person if you have a legal responsibility to do so.
• Abandonment or desertion of an older person by a person who has the physical or legal responsibility for providing care.
• Illegal or improper use of an older person's funds, property, or assets. This includes forging an older person's signature, stealing money or possessions, or tricking an older person into signing documents that transfer funds, property, or assets.

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