Ill-treatment of the elderly

The ill-treatment of the elderly is a whole of behaviors or attitudes, single or repeated, concerning the elderly within the framework of a relationship of trust or of dependence and who can cause the distress or wounds with these people. The ill-treatment can be of type physical, moral, financial, sexual or more simply of the negligence.

International definition

The the Council of Europe gives a definition of the ill-treatment as of 1990:

Any act or omission made within the framework of the family by one of her members, which undermines the life, to the body or psychic integrity, or with the freedom of another family member or who seriously compromises the development of his personality and/or harms his financial safety.

According to the classification of the the Council of Europe 1992, one distinguishes:

physical violences: abrupt blows, burns, tying up, care without information or preparation, not-satisfaction of the requests for physiological needs, sexual violences, murder of which euthanasia,…
psychic violences or morals: language disrespectful or devaluing, absence of consideration, blackmails, abuse of authority, behaviors of infantilisation, non-observance of the intimacy, paradoxical injunctions,…
material and financial violences: flights, requirements of tip, swindles various, local misfits,…
medical or medicamentous violences: miss basic care, not-information on the treatments or the care, abuse treatment Sédatif or Neuroleptique, defect of care of rehabilitation, not-catch in account of the pain,…
the active negligences: all forms of maltreatment, abuses, abandonments, failures practiced with the intention to harm,…
passive negligences: concerned with ignorance, carelessness of the entourage,…
the deprivation or the violation of the rights: limitation of the freedom of the person, deprivation of the exercise of the civic rights, a religious practice,…

Various situations

The ill-treatment can be exerted as well in the residence of the elderly as in institution and emanate from the professionals like entourage. Moreover, the victims generally are keep silent (feeling of shame, fear of possible reprisals…). It is thus today difficult to really quantify the problem.

Ill-treatment in the residence

Within the framework of the ill-treatment in the residence, the risk factors of appearance of the ill-treatment are related

to the elderly (degree of physical or psychic dependence, irrational states, financial position, social insulation…),
with the marital status within which the elderly evolve/move (alcoholism, drug-addiction, financial problems, psychological brittleness, antecedents of family violence or physical exhaustion and highly-strung person of the parents which deals with the elderly…)
with the infrastructure of the place of life (too exiguous buildings or not adapted to the degree of dependence of the elderly, geographical insulation…).

Ill-treatment in establishment

The ill-treatment in establishment often seems the symptom of serious institutional gaps. Indeed, an institution which does not have a step activates " bientraitance" short the risk to see occurring in its center of the ill-treatments of various kinds. As Éliane Corbet indicates it, doctor in psychopedagogy, there exists… a violence made with a user since an institution does not fill or more its mission in its connection, as soon as the quality of its reception is not guaranteed any more, as soon as the interests of the institution take precedence over those of the accommodated user. (Source AFPAP)

Each year in France of tens of thousands of case of ill-treatment rythment still life of the old people's homes. Officially, only 5% of the 10.500 establishments would be the subject of descriptions. That would concern all the same more than 32.000 boarders, potential victims of practices going from the deprivation of food to the aggravated assault.

Prevention and assumption of responsibility

In France

In fact associations nongovernmental law 1901 intervene in France with the profit of the elderly, the families and the professionals as regards information, prevention and fight against the ill-treatments made to the elderly. (French Association of Protection and Assistance to Elderly (AFPAP), Association Hello Ill-treatment of Elderly ALMA, AFBAH (Francilienne Association for Bientraitance of Elder and/or Handicapped), RIFVEL (French-speaking Internet network To age in Freedom)…)

The French government created on March 13rd, 2007 (decree n°2007-330) a National committee of vigilance and fight against the ill-treatment of the elderly and the handicapped adults

In Belgium

Violence with regard to the elderly in the broad sense of the term, is a problem with which elderly on five are confronted in Belgium.

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