[Study on abuse and neglect of the disabled elderly living at home]

To obtain basic information on elderly abuse and neglect in order to provide for its early discovery and prevention, a questionnaire survey about the present situation regarding abuse and neglect of the disabled elderly living at home was performed on health/medical service/welfare professions. Forty-two cases were analyzed. The major results were as follows; 1. Victims were 13 men and 29 women, approximately 1/3 of whom were in their 70's and another 1/3 in their 80's. Approximately 1/4 of the abusers were either sons or daughters of the victims. 2. Verbal abuse was the most frequent type of abuse with a rate of 69.0%. The percentage of psychological abuse was 61.9, passive neglect was 57.1%, active neglect was 50.0%, physical abuse was 47.6%, passive self-neglect was 28.6%, financial/material exploitation was 23.8%, active self-neglect was 16.7% and the others was 11.9%. The average number of abuse and neglect that an elderly received was 3.5. 3. The main causes of abuse and neglect did not appear to be simple but was complicated by related causes, many of both victims and abusers had elements in their personality, developmental history and interpersonal relationships that over a period of years formed the basis for the problematic behavior. Many abuse or neglect cases arose from caregiving burden of family caregivers or insufficient social systems for support to meet the needs of caring for the elderly. 4. The results suggest that for prevention and countermeasures for elderly abuse, there is an urgent need to arrange for expansion of health and welfare services to reduce burden of caregivers, provide for education of professionals of health/medical service/welfare for early discovery and proper handling of abuse problems, development of a checklist for early discovery, expansion of opportunities of improving care skill for family caregivers and establishment of consultation system for the elderly and caregivers, and organizing emergency shelter for victims of elderly abuse.