Tales of U. S Elder Abuse Keep Growing

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Ethan Prater

Tales of U.S. Elder Abuse Keep Growing Published on May 16, 2016

Mike Splaine

Principal at Splaine Consulting

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Part Two: Educating Professional Alzheimer’s Caregivers

By Michael Splaine, President, Cognitive Solutions At Cognitive Solutions, we understand the issues relating to Dementia/Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). One involves abusive relationships in the area known as “eldercare.”

Among major questions we ask: How many professionals providing eldercare are involved in this issue? And how often does it happen?

The Overall Understanding

Here are some quick stats from the National Center on Elder Abuse (NCEA, a division of the Administration on Aging) relating directly to the abuse of people with Alzheimer’s in long-term care facilities: 1 in 3 facilities showed some incidence of harmful situations 50% of nursing home staff admitted there’s some sort of abuse in their facility 44% of nursing home residents report actual abuse And perhaps the most frightening: 95% of nursing home residents are either neglected

themselves or have seen other residents neglected.

I’m blessed to have as an associate, Jane Mark, who’s amazing in AD work, including caregiving-related elder abuse. Here’s one of our conversations on how our professionals need better training on elder abuse.

Current Definitions

Mike Splaine (MS): Let’s remind colleagues of the definition of “Elder Abuse.” Its not just physically hurting people, is it?

Jane Marks (JM): No, and that’s one of the important indications we have to regularly remind professionals.

The Assisted Living Federation of America (now known as Argentum) provides an easy-to-read handout “Elder Abuse Facts,” that includes the six forms of elder abuse.

Besides physical harm, there’s emotional/psychological abuse (like verbal attacks); sexual abuse (including tricking the older adult into sex); exploiting finances; neglecting care and even totally abandoning someone.

MS: So which is the largest occurrence in elder abuse?

JM: NCEA’s latest report says that caregivers most often abuse verbally, in 60 percent of cases. They say physical abuse relates to no more than 10 percent of cases.

Personally Seeing Elder Abuse

JM: Consider this event I’ve seen: A resident fell in one facility and I overheard the nurse screaming at the woman. She said things like, ‘I can’t believe you fell. We’ve told you to be careful. And now look what’s happened. And I was getting ready to leave work early ‘cause I have dinner reservations, but now I have to stay and fill out paperwork because you fell!’

MS: You said you have a more personal scenario involving elder care abuse?

JM: Yes. I was visiting someone in long-term care with still mild dementia. She’d tap her fingers whenever a particular staff person would walk by and visibly stiffen when the staffer actually walked into her room. When I finally asked, ‘What about her?’ my friend said, ‘She’s mean,” and ‘She’s hateful. I started asking questions and several residents without dementia told me this staffer was hateful and one said, “downright mean.”

MS: So what did you do?

JM: I went to the facility administrator and shared what I had heard and observed. I said, “ I wanted you to be aware of this situation and that it meets the criteria of verbal abuse.’”

MS: And that stopped it? The worker was fired?

JM: Not as far as I know. I know that the staffer was taken aside and reprimanded. But we all know it’s 'hard to get ‘em and hard to keep ‘em,’ so many places don’t want to fire LTC employees.

Professionals Need to Abandon Rose-Colored Glasses

MS: So what do we need to better aid health professionals recognize and diminish elder abuse?

JM: Professionals need to encourage colleagues to recognize elder abuse in general, especially relating to dementia, then get involved.

The NCEA provides great online checkpoints that facilities can easily implement for their health professionals. Here are just a few we should encourage: Learn more about elder abuse Assess cognitive status and health factors that affect it Perform abuse screenings Participate on multidisciplinary teams We also need to better review LTC training. We may mandate it, but not specific methods of training or any kind of testing or skills demonstration. Right now, you can put staff in front of a video and say, ‘Watch this for two hours. This is your training.’

Well…staff can sleep and doodle and do lots of other things except pay attention. And mandated LTC training often still doesn’t teach ways to recognize elder abuse.

Perhaps most important: we all need to understand that people with dementia may not be clear on details when they indicate an abuse issue, but they can definitely be clear on a basic emotional memory.

MS: Thanks Jane. Here’s additional information from the National Committee for the Prevention of Elder Abuse (NCPEA). It takes professionals to the bullets Jane mentioned: http://www.preventelderabuse.org/elderabuse/professionals/

#### Mike Splaine is CEO of Cognitive Solutions, a specialized consultancy enhancing detection, outcomes and savings for those in Alzheimer’s Disease and dementia-related patient service—both the professionals and families. Cognitive Solutions’ extended team consists of nurses, social workers, researchers and other industry specialists who bring 100-plus years of experience in Alzheimer’s and other dementias.

Jane Marks is a sought-after speaker and teacher on all aspects of dementia and its caregiver challenges. She is a published author of multiple journal articles on aging and Alzheimer’s disease, as well creator of multiple training curricula.

Jane has spent over a decade as the Executive Director of the Alzheimer’s Association’s West Virginia Chapter.

Tagged in: elder care, alzheimer's disease, abuse prevention

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Mike Splaine

Principal at Splaine Consulting 22 articles

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Josine Engels

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Welzijnscoach Verpleeghuis Oudshoorn, Alrijne Zorggroep; Masterstudent Vitality and Ageing, Leiden;…

Thank you for sharing this, Mike Splaine. Such an important topic, still happening often, I am afraid. It needs more attention everywhere, from everyone who works with people with dementia, elderly or other vulnerable or dependent groups.

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