Elder abuse

Respond to at least two of your peers by extending, refuting/correcting, or adding additional nuance to their posts.

Post #1

Jessica Rincon

St. Thomas University

NUR 417 AP2

Prof. Yedelis Diaz

10/16/2022

Elder Abuse

According to Santos et al. (2019), elder abuse is the failure to protect an elderly person from harm or to provide for his or her basic needs, by a caregiver. The definition of elder abuse also includes intentional or unintentional actions or inactions of a caregiver that create a serious risk of harm or cause harm to a vulnerable elder. Lecture Notes (Slide 5) present that elder abuse can be domestic, institutional, or result from self-neglect. The seven types of elder abuse are self-neglect, abandonment, physical abuse, emotional abuse, neglect, material and financial exploitation, and sexual abuse.

Weissberger et al. (2020) define physical abuse as intentionally causing an elderly person physical injury, harm, pain, distress, or functional impairment through the use of force. Forms of physical abuse include inappropriate use of physical or medication restraints, physical punishment, hitting, and slapping. Self-neglect, as the name suggests, is any self-inflicted behavior that threatens the elderly person’s safety and health (Weissberger et al., 2020). Actions such as failure to provide self with appropriate hygiene and adequate food are self-neglect. The elder abuse of abandonment is closely related to that of self-neglect, except that it is perpetrated by the elderly person’s caregiver.

Neglect also shares similar characteristics as it is defined as the failure of the caretaker to meet the necessary basic needs, such as adequate clothing, shelter, food, social stimulation, and medical attention, of an elderly person (Weissberger et al., 2020). Emotional abuse refers to causing an elderly person anguish, psychological pain, distress, fear, and geographic isolation through verbal and non-verbal interactions. Disrespect, threats, and humiliation qualify as forms of emotional abuse (Weissberger et al., 2020). Lastly, sexual abuse is unwanted or forced sexual interaction or contact, while financial exploitation refers to fraudulent, unauthorized, or improper use of the property of an elderly person by a trusted individual, caregiver, or stranger for the benefit of the exploiter and not the elderly person (Weissberger et al., 2020).

Approaching Ethical Dilemmas

Euthanasia, suicide, and assisted suicide to present the most common forms of ethical dilemmas nurses face in their delivery of care. The primary approach to such ethical dilemmas is to rely on the professional codes of ethics that govern nursing practice. These codes of ethics are based on the ethical principles of self-determination or autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, justice, and veracity (Lecture Notes, Slide 31).