Factor one is age, is gets everyone in the elderly and it can affect the reaction time when they process things, they become more slow and less aware of things occurring in day to day life which leaves them vulnerable to financial, sexual, physical, and mental abuse. Ageing is one of the greatest known risk factors that abuse is common for. Children and young adults are also vulnerable sometimes just as much to physical, sexual, grooming and emotional abuse. This could be for several different reasons, we like to think the elderly are more educated and have life experiences that children don’t and are still developing but along that path this makes these individuals for those reason’s alone vulnerable to different kinds of abuse.
Factors that may lead to an individual being more at risk of abuse than others might include
There are certain demographics that are more prone to child abuse. Lower income families and young single mothers are the most likely to have child abuse in the home. This is due to the levels of stress in these types of families. When a person gets too stressed, and is not given the proper tools and resources to let that stress out, naturally it goes to a person that is close to them. Most of the time it is the children, all it takes is for the child to do something small, it can be something natural such as crying for no apparent reason as children often do, to take the abuser from simply over stressed to their breaking point.
Elder abuse is a family matter, most of the date indicated that adult children are the abusers. Spouses and other family members are also part of the abuse but not as much as adult children. According to the National Center on Elder Abuse, almost 90% of abusers were family members and almost 62% of all cases of abuse, neglect, or exploitation of adults living at home engage abuse by the other people. You would think that caregivers would be more likely to mistreat the elders, since the elders are not family, sadly that is not the
Of the HFE cases, six identified co-occurring abuse, nine identified co-occurring neglect and one identified both co-occurring abuse and neglect. Interviews were conducted with up to three interviewees per case to include Adult Protective Services (APS) caseworkers (54), victims of reported elder maltreatment (42) and third party uninvolved individuals; such as neighbors, children, and friends (31) (Jackson & Hafemeister, 2012). Data was collected from a statewide database of all reported cases over a two year period. From that data, sources were interviewed and utilizing that data and APS data, important differences were found over the four types of maltreatment and the significance of studying both the victim and the abuser when determining types of elder maltreatment and the risk factors (Jackson & Hafemeister, 2011).
The individuals more vulnerable to this abuse are elderly people, the ones that live alone, individuals with learning disabilities, and all disable people, individuals who do not have good support networks around them, and individuals being cared for at home who are reliant on another person for care and support.
Poverty: Research suggests that poverty is one of the important factor which lead to different kind of abuses e.g. social exclusion, substance abuse, self-harm, child abuse. Those who are unemployed, particularly long term unemployed, in poor or insecure housing have a higher rate of substance abuse than those who do not fit into these categories.
Data that was collected from the studies above are unimaginable. There is a high correlation between abuse and delinquent behavior. Many factors play into reasons why a child may be abused. Some of the factors that play into abuse are as follows: parent or caregiver factors, family factors, child factors, and environmental factors. Examples of parent or caregiver factors are: age, substance abuse, psychological well-being, and history of abuse. Family factors could include a child living in a single parent household. This type of situation may
Abuse can happen to anyone, anywhere, at any time. However, it is so alarming that more and more elderly people suffer from abuse everyday. Many elderly adults are being abused in their homes and even in care facilities such as nursing homes responsible for their care. How can elderly groups be vulnerable to abuse and/or harm to self and others? And
There are a vast amount of factors that can contribute to an individual being more vulnerable to abuse, these include:
safeguarding, who a vulnerable adult is, different types of abuse, who may abuse, factors and
Abuse can happen to anyone, but elderly adults residing in nursing homes are more vulnerable and have a higher risk for abuse (Rasansky Law Firm, 2006, para. 1). Elders are among the fastest growing in the population, and because of this many more elderly
Research conducted in the United States of America clearly identifies an interaction between victim age and abuse characteristics (USDHHS, 2003). There exists a negative correlation between the onset and prevalence of physical neglect and victim age, for instance, indicative of a young child's dependency upon the caregiver for supervision and nurture (Mash & Wolfe, 2005). The incidence of physical and emotional abuse is also most prominent during developmental periods of independence, specifically the early, pre-school and adolescent transitional stages of development (ibid). Sexual abuse has prevailed most consistently, however, from an onset of age 3 throughout childhood, highlighting the vulnerability of children across the age-spectrum (ibid). Nevertheless, victim gender is emphasised as an influential variable within the incidence and nature of sexual abuse; for females have accounted for up to 80% of reported victims and are more likely to be abused by male family members in contrast to male victims, where the perpetrator of abuse is more likely to be a non-family male offender (USDHHS, 2003; Berliner & Elliott, 2002).
There are certain groups of individuals that appear to be most at risk of abuse than others, and therefore more vulnerable. Vulnerable adults can be abused in different ways for different reasons.
I enjoyed reading your post; it’s interesting and good to read something on the topic from a different perspective. I’d have to concur with you about older adults “accepting” abuse and are being are taken advantage of because of their dependence and/or emotional, physical, and mental state. It’s sad knowing that maybe some day this happens everyday to older adults. I’d like to add that older adults also accept abuse because they’re not aware of what abuse is, and where they can go for help. As you said most older adults fear reporting abuse because of repercussions from the abusers themselves, and may not want to report in fear of their abusers, which is most likely their caregiver, going to jail and, as a result they may fear being
Child abuse is a serious social problem in the world. Child abuse is defined as physical, emotional, and sexual maltreatment by their parents, caregiver, and other people. The goal of this survey is to gather information about how people are aware of the child abuse in their community and society. My survey had five questions that were a mixture of close-ended and open-ended questions. Questionnaires help to get an appropriate response from the participant. The sample of this survey takes from a random population, such as international students and United States citizens.