Elder Abuse Essay Sample

Psychology

Introduction
Recent laws in adult care have been passed to the congress. However, there are still cases of elder abuse. More importantly these individual needs an ample amount of support. First we will discuss the possible psychological and physical effects of elder abuse. Elder abuse is common to family related cases and for some extent at nursery homes. However, there is a varying effect of this abuse. The physical effects could lead to sleep disturbances, head injuries, dental problems, hypertension and even premature death. Additionally, the psychological effect for these elder individuals includes lack of cognitive skills (disorientation), anxiety disorders and even Post traumatic stress syndrome (NRC, 2003).

For this paper we will tackle about Joyce (84 years old) and her complaints.

Situation Analysis:
Joyce is an 84 yr. old woman, and has given complaint to the crisis worker. She has complained about her son previously but stops for a while and then called back after some weeks. Evidently, she has been widowed for about 7 months. Her son was also complaining about her attitude of always crying and not coping with the stress cause by the death of her husband.
As a crisis worker, I would definitely first let Ms. Joyce calm down herself. The following methods are just interventions to make Mrs. Joyce more comfortable. I would say “Mrs, if you would not mind can you please drink a glass of water before we continue?”. This would be helpful for her in order to calm first and to ease the stress she already have. I would like to suggest that Mrs. Joyce would ask for a psychologist to help her in coping up with the stress given by her husband’s death. Moreover, I would also like to comfort Mrs. Joyce that I guess her son is just tired of his work and could not attend to her needs. Given that Mrs. Joyce has calmed herself, I would also like to ask her to do recreational activities during the day so that she can be distracted and would over think about her husband’s death. I would also want a crisis worker to follow up her case and to make sure that she has gotten the help she needed. If the client was a Chinese or a Puerto Rican, I would like to ask for a good speaker that can use the language a lot easier to establish a good atmosphere. Definitely, a help from a registered psychologist and nurse must be sought out. The psychologist could assess the patient’s situation and could give immediate help to her. Additionally, the nurse could give a physical care for the elderly.

References:

National Research Council. 2003. Elder mistreatment: abuse, neglect, and exploitation in an aging America. In: Bonnie RJ. and. Wallace RB, editors. Panel to Review Risk and Prevalence of Elder Abuse and Neglect. Washington DC: The National Academies Press.