Signs
The signs of abuse vary considerably among older people and with the type of harm being experienced. An older person who is being abused may:
- Say she or he is being harmed
- Seem depressed and withdrawn; signs of depression in elders are not getting dressed, not performing basic care of themselves that they are able to do, never going out even if they can, inability to sleep or sleeping too much
- Not accepting invitations to spend time away from their family or a caregiver
- Seem afraid to make their own decisions
- Seem to be hiding something about a caregiver
- Not have any spending money
- Put off going to the doctor
- Feel anxious and fearful
- Try to "run away," leaving their place of residence and not wishing to return
- Seem to have too many household "accidents"
Any of these potential signs can indicate problems other than abuse or neglect, and none of these "prove" there is harms occurring. The presence of the signs simply indicate that further inquiry may be necessary.
Read more about this topic: Elder Abuse
Famous quotes containing the word signs:
“Superfluous lags the veteran on the stage,
Till pitying Nature signs the last release,
And bids afflicted worth retire to peace.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“What a devil hast thou to do with the time of the day? Unless hours were cups of sack, and minutes capons, and clocks the
tongues of bawds, and dials the signs of leaping-houses, and the blessed sun himself a fair hot wench in flame-colored
taffeta, I see no reason why thou shouldst be so superfluous
to demand the time of the day.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Chaucer sawed life in half and out tumbled hundreds of unpremeditated lives, because he didn’t have the cast-iron grid of a priori coherence that makes reading Goethe, Shakespeare, or Dante an exercise in searching for signs of life among the conventions, compulsions, self-justifications, proofs, wise saws, simple but powerful messages, and poetry.”
—Marvin Mudrick (1921–1986)