NCJ Number
92690
Date Published
1983
Length
13 pages
Annotation
Responses to a survey by members of the Emergency Department Nurses Association living in Florida established that nurses are encountering evidence of physical, psychological, and material abuse of the elderly, as well as human rights violations such as loss of personal freedom.
Abstract
About 83 percent of the 206 respondents had detected some sort of abuse of the elderly. The paper outlines the special role of hospital and community service nurses in elderly abuse prevention. In the course of assessing patients' problems, planning their care, implementing the plans, and evaluating the results, nurses must be on the alert for signs of abuse, either in physical condition or emotional status. The nurse must be able to differentiate outright abuse from unintentional negative effects resulting from families' inability to care properly for particular problems of elderly patients. All observations suggesting abuse should be documented prior to reporting. Visiting nurses, public health nurses, and nurse practitioners in outpatient clinics should also be alert to signs of abuse in the elderly. Nurse training programs should develop programs to make nurses aware of these signs. Six references and tables are supplied.