The unique circumstances or characteristics that make your elders special victims
Recently, elders have become special victims of circumstance, especially domestic violence. Elderly abuse can be perpetrated by any person at any level of relationship to the elderly individual. There are a number of characteristics that can increase the possibility of an elderly individual to feature in the category of special victims.
Most of the elderly people have memory problems for instance dementia. Best-Martini and Jones-DiGenova (2014) argued that memory is an important segment of any relationship to function effectively. Lapsed or memory loss is detrimental to any cordial relationship. Elders are special victims of memory loss. Repeating information quite often is quite boring. The caregivers can easily give up on them; and at that, issues of neglect takes center stage.
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Most of the elders have physical disabilities. That essentially makes them quite immobile. The caregivers have to do everything for them and that encompasses feeding them, the disposal of their solid waste remains among others. That can be cumbersome. Due to their condition, one can easily notice lots of bruises, cuts, and poor physical appearances. Some elderly face threats of neglect and physical abuse from the caregivers and not capable of saying it for the fear of the unknown.
Most of the elders are special victims of emotional stress. That majorly arises from cases of abandonment and neglect. That is characterized by depression, lack of social support and loneliness. It should be instructively noted that a majority of the elders are coming from a position where they were the commanding authorities (Lachs & Pillemer, 2015). They could give instructions and everyone else follows. Afterward, they degenerate to a position where the instruction has to be given from another quarter mostly probably a son, daughter or relative. These persons are still in the productive segments of their lives and thus find very little time to be with the old. They offer very little or no social support. Some do it through caretakers who turn out to be violent. The older individual is alone most of the time with no one to talk; that breeds lowliness and depression.
Some elderly persons become physically or verbally combative with the caregivers. Such kinds of exchanges are quite dangerous and in a majority of scenarios result in the abuse of the elderly person. Some elders or caregivers are alcohol and substance abuse victims. Best-Martini and Jones-DiGenova (2014) mentioned that substance abuse and alcohol are prime ingredients to uncouth behavior in the society even with elders. When alcohol dominates in a system, abuse is inevitable.
Describe the psychological impact that crimes have on elder victims
Elderly persons face different categories of crimes. That includes financial crimes, physical abuse, and neglect among others. According to Lachs and Pillemer (2015), one of the things that make crime cumbersome to cope up with is the knowledge that it was done deliberately by another individual. Unlike illness or accident, persons that commit crime tend to cause sort of ham.
Elderly persons that experience crime become derailed psychologically. Crime scenes place older individuals in situations that are beyond their level of control. Crimes make one undergo a season of disorganized activity (Jackson & Hafemeister, 2014). They remain with distressing thoughts surrounding the event and more so, develop trouble when sleeping. They continually find themselves developing recollections about the event. Some of the elderly people can possibly suffer from a post-traumatic stress disorder.
The negative thoughts have a severe impact on the health of the individual; it destroys an individual’s quality of life. Psychological stress can lead to a heightened sense of depression, helplessness, new or worsened illness, and increased stress (Jackson & Hafemeister, 2014). Other issues that result from psychological stress include increased dependency, increased mental decline, and possibly premature death.
References
Best-Martini, E., & Jones-DiGenova, K. (2014). Exercise for frail elders . Human kinetics.
Jackson, S. L., & Hafemeister, T. L. (2014). How case characteristics differ across four types of elder maltreatment: Implications for tailoring interventions to increase victim safety. Journal of applied gerontology , 33 (8), 982-997.
Lachs, M. S., & Pillemer, K. A. (2015). Elder abuse. New England Journal of Medicine , 373 (20), 1947-1956.
