In the state of Connecticut, the number of elder abuse investigations has more than doubled in recent years. From the data available, investigations went up by more than double in the time period between 2011 and 2017. That’s just a six year period, and the data indicates a troubling trend.
It begs a very important question: why are the number of elder abuse investigations going up so rapidly?
The question is not an easy one to answer, but there are some things that we can learn from the information available. For one, Connecticut’s information indicates that the type of abuse that saw the most attention during this period was self-abuse. By definition, self-abuse occurs when someone is unable or unwilling to attend to their activities of daily living and does not have the help that they need to make sure that those things happen. Over the last several years, people have been made much more aware of what this is and how to prevent it–which is partially responsible for the rise of investigations into abuse cases.
Neglect by others, financial abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, and abandonment round out the list of the other most reported instances of abuse, in order. All of these types of abuse went up in their frequency.
Unfortunately, this is not isolated to just Connecticut. The number of investigations of abuse have gone up across the entire U.S. Some of this is related to the #MeToo movement, in which many cases of sexual abuse have come light, but not all of them. Many of these cases have come to light because of increased awareness.
Elder abuse is a serious topic, and it is important to take steps early on to ensure that it is completely prevented. While the number of abuse investigations in some parts of the country has risen, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Yes, elder abuse is always a horrific thing and yes, the fact that it occurs is terrible, but the fact that there are more investigations now than there were six years ago could be because of the fact that greater strides are being taken to ensure that all allegations are being taken as seriously as possible.
Investigations show that people are cracking down on this. It does not necessarily mean that there have been more cases of elder abuse. After all, some experts believe that only about one in five acts of abuse toward seniors are actually reported. The idea that these cases are now getting the attention that they need is a good one. It means that more seniors are getting the help that they need. But it hurts. No one deserves to be treated like this, and the sooner that elder abuse is brought to the wider public’s attention, the better.
Of course, prevention is much better. Hopefully, the rise in investigations will help more and more people to report potential problems before they grow in severity. Hopefully, this will help people to prevent any sort of issue before it begins. Awareness is a good first step. Luckily, trained care professionals can have a profound influence here, too.
Leave a Reply