Tag: elderly

World Elder Abuse Awareness Day

Every year on 15th June World Elder Abuse Awareness Day (WEAAD) is celebrated. The United Nations General Assembly officially recognized it in December 2011, on the plea of the International Network for the Prevention of Elder Abuse (INPEA). Every year many awareness programs take place globally to voice against the abuse taking place on elderly people.

What is Elder Abuse?

Elder abuse can be defined as “any act or lack of appropriate conduct that causes any harm or hampers the well-being of an elder person. Elder abuse is a global issue that requires attention internationally.

People often exploit and neglect the elderly. Their age makes them much vulnerable to abuse. Being old, body and mind become weak, making them unable to resist or take any action against any sort of exploitation or abuse. Elder abuse takes place in every corner of the world but is still taboo as no one talks about it.

The old people are often beaten, neglected, abandoned, and even sexually exploited. The elderly are not only exploited by outsiders, but even by their families. It mostly happens because people find them weak and feel them as a burden on them. There are many cases where children have abandoned their old parents after transferring all their parents’ property on their names by forceful means.

Abuse of the elderly can take many forms.

•          Neglect- Life necessities such as food, clothing, shelter, and medical care are not provided.

•          Verbal Abuse- Using threatening and foul language to create a sense of fear within the elderly.

•          Physical Abuse- Causing physical harm by beating and even trying to kill the elder person.

•          Social Abuse- Restricting the elderly from having any social contact with anyone to restrain them from sharing about the abuse they are facing.

•          Financial Abuse- Forcefully taking upon the elder person’s property or illegal use of their money.

These abuses not just harm the elder person physically but also mentally. Such abuses may lead to traumatic experiences by the elderly and deteriorate their mental health, which might result in depression or anxiety.

There are laws for protecting the rights of the elderly. But when no voice is raised against the abuse, how would the laws help? The person facing such abuse often declines to lodge any complaint against it. Either they have no will left to do so after suffering so much, or they think “what the society would think if they come to know about it”.

2021’s Theme for World Elder Abuse Awareness Day

This year (2021) the theme for World Elder Abuse Awareness Day is ‘Access to Justice’. It aims at reminding the importance to address the elderly peoples’ needs who seek recourse for any wrong happening taking place with them.

The elderly deserve and need just love, care, and respect. If today’s youth is tomorrow’s future, then the elderly is the foundation of tomorrow’s future. The knowledge we have today is what has been passed on to us through generations, through our parents; our grandparents. The elderly are the tressure box to this knowledge and life lessons who need to be cherished and not abused.

Every human has the right to live a life of dignity. And the old people are nowhere to stand distinct. They deserve the same rights as any other human being. They have the same right to enjoy their rights as others do.

Dementia in elderly people

Senior citizens face various issues in their day-to-day life. With the growing age, a weak body and weak cognition make almost every task difficult for them to perform. Getting older is not just about wrinkles and greying hair. Physical illness is not just the issue of the elderly, but also mental illness. Depression and dementia are the most common psychological diseases.

Dementia is a syndrome that deteriorates the cognition and ability to perform everyday tasks of an individual. Dementia is not itself a disease, but a collective term used to describe symptoms of impairment in thinking, memory, and communication.

Although dementia mostly affects older people it is not a normal part of aging. Possible symptoms of dementia are-

  • Recent memory loss- A person asking the same question might repeatedly be a sign.
  • Forgetfulness- The person may be forgetting where he/she kept his/her everyday items.
  • Mood swings- Sudden or unexplained change in mood.
  • Bewilderment- Getting lost or confused in familiar places.
  • A problem in speech- difficulty with familiar language, forgetting words, or using wrong words in place of some other word.
  • Loss in interest- Showing less or no interest in doing something that they earlier enjoyed or going somewhere.

With these symptoms, dementia is acting as a major reason for the abuse of the elderly. The elderly suffering from dementia is easily negligible for some people as the sufferer is not capable of saying anything or raising any questions to them. The old aged people with dementia are often abandoned o the streets by their own families and children so that they don’t have to give any special care to them and also they know that the patient is not in a condition to report these incidents.

Abandonment is not the only abuse an elderly with dementia has to face. There are more abuses that they have to face like:

  • Negligence- The elderly with dementia suffers from forgetfulness and may not remember to take meals, bath or medicine on time and the caregiver may keep neglecting the patient there is no to rebuke
  • Sexual abuse- as a sufferer of dementia and a weak body the elderly is easy prey for the abusers and are hence, forced into sexual acts without their consent.
  • Financial abuse- old aged people are often tricked into handing over all their property to their family, by their family members, either by forcing or by forging the signature of the property holder.

People often use the words ‘Dementia’ and ‘Alzheimer’ interchangeably, but the two diseases are different. Alzheimer is itself a disease, whereas dementia is a collective term.

Aging affects differently on different people but it has a common way of handling it- love and care. The person who nurtured us yesterday needs some care and affection today. And love is deserved by every being and so by the elderly. Elderly suffering from dementia is not an opportunity for abandoning and abusing them, rather a human being to be taken care of.