Blog

Details: Published: 30 March 2016

By Margaret Easton

The relationship between frailty and elder abuse is receiving increasing attention in the research literature. In a previous blog, I reviewed research which suggested that normal age-related frailty leading to impairment in Activities of Daily Living (ADL’s) poses a significant risk factor for financial exploitation. The authors of that study concluded that “the need of some older adults for help and assistance in accomplishing everyday activities appears to elicit verbal abusiveness and economic exploitation, but not other forms of abuse” (Acierno et al., 2011). In this blog, I’d like to share the results of a research article published last month that strongly suggests that economic exploitation in late life leads to increased mortality (Burnett et al., 2016).

By Heather Campbell

The concept of institutional elder abuse is often associated with the mistreatment, exploitation and rights violations experienced by residents in care home settings. However, older adults in correctional facilities can also be victims of these institutional harms, and elders with dementia are particularly vulnerable if they become caught up in the criminal justice system.

Under the current system, a criminally accused individual with dementia faces a long, difficult and dangerous journey. From time to time, for example, we hear tragic reports of people with dementia languishing in prison or forensic hospitals. In early 2016, for example, a 53-year-old Yukon man with severe dementia had been in jail for six weeks awaiting a fitness to stand trial assessment. He was eventually found unfit, but remained in jail while he waited for a risk assessment to be conducted at a forensic hospital.

By Allison Jones

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The forum, held at Simon Fraser University (SFU) downtown Vancouver on February 18, was well attended by LGBTQ seniors, health care providers, academics, students and other interested participants. It was the second in a series of five town hall meetings on elder abuse, hosted by Dr Gloria Gutman, presented in partnership by the Simon Fraser Gerontology Research Centre, and Quirk-e (the Queer elder riting kollective) and was held at .

Dr. Gutman gave opening remarks, introducing the audience to the reality of abuse in the LGBTQ communities and to the forms it takes, whether it be financial, physical, psychological or emotional. In some case, elder abuse presents itself as self-neglect, when an older person has no one to look after them, they may begin to neglect themselves to the point where it is considered a form of self-abuse.

Dr. Gutman received a grant from BC’s Ministry of Health to work with Quirk-e. Quirk-e members worked with Surrey Youth for a Change to write, act, direct and film three shorts (each no more than three minutes in length) with different scenarios depicting elder abuse. The Vancouver audience, which included staff from LGBTQ serving organizations, was enthusiastic. The films, although dealing with difficult topics, were refreshing in that they not only represented LGBTQ seniors, they were acted by LGBTQ seniors themselves. The shorts depicted abuse as complex and situational, with many different tensions intersecting, including family loyalty, internalized homophobia, control and gender conformity, and physical and psychological violence.

The town hall featured a number of Senior and LGBTQ senior-serving organizations including THiP, Vancouver Coastal Re-Act, SAIL (Seniors Abuse & Information Line), PRISM, QMUNITY, Alzheimer’s Society of BC, the Office of the Public Trustee and Dr.Gutman herself commenting on how LGBTQ elder abuse affects the LGBTQ seniors community. These town halls will happen or have already happened in Surrey, Prince George, Kelowna and on Vancouver Island. The group working on the grant has designed a number of LGBTQ elder abuse posters to raise the issue’s visibility and include information on how to report and document elder abuse when it occurs with LGBTQ seniors.

Please contact the Seniors Coordinator at QMUNITY or 604-684-8449 for more information.

Details: Published: 29 February 2016

Guest Blogger: Deborah Marshall

Quite often you turn on the news and you hear that the world is getting older and our population is aging. The media portrays the aging population as a negative thing, when in reality, older adults are often involved contributors, helping other older adults, working, volunteering and generally infusing money back into the economy. Getting older has many positives associated with it: having more time to volunteer, to travel, learn, visit and help family members. Getting older does not necessarily mean becoming unwell, and, for many Canadians, their best years will be in the ‘golden age’. Unfortunately, some seniors may not be as healthy in later years. Frailties can and do develop with the aging process, and these frailties, combined with putting too much trust in the wrong person, may lead to elders becoming vulnerable to abuse.