Data is piling up.

Minister for Seniors Ayesha Verrall says one in 10 older people experience elder abuse in New Zealand.

Age Concern says it received around 825 referrals to cases of elder abuse in the 12 months to June 2022, up from around 200 referrals a year in 2016.

National Pacific health provider, Vaka Tautua has dealt with 147 cases of elder abuse in west Auckland alone since 2019. Data shows a steady increase in referrals, with 20 in the year 2019-2020 and 57 in the year 2020-2021. In the year 2021 to date, there have been 70 referrals.

It's clearly a growing problem. Just how big could be anybody's guess.

"It's every day, (there are) more of these cases now," says Vaka Tautua social worker Ngatuakana Kino.

As Age Concern notes "The honest truth is we don't really know what the full scale of the problem is, because the more resources you have available to support people, the more people come out of the woodwork to say that they need help.

"We certainly haven't plateaued yet, we haven't reached the top of the curve."

Lamb said abuse brings about "terrible feelings" of shame and embarrassment for elderly victims.

"Seventy-five to 80 percent of the cases we deal with are in families, so they're fearful that they're going to lose their independence or they're going to get their family into trouble.

"It's almost just being in a position of denial because they can't bear the thought that their children or grandchildren would be doing this to them."

Neglect, financial, emotional and physical abuse left victims "lost and isolated," Kino says.

Knowing the signs of elder abuse means she is often the first person to notice when it's happening in her church community.

Unusual quietness and visible bruises are two signs she looks out for. If these issues persist, it could be a sign of elder abuse.

"The cuts, the bruises in the face... the quietness. If it's too often it's not normal." But it gets normalised.

People often think a formerly social parent's quietness or lack of interest in engaging with others is just not being as loud as before, or just caught up in one corner of the church and not wanting to engage with anybody."

Then there's isolation "When no family is allowed to come over to the home and it's basically mum and son, and son is the abuser, all those things are happening daily. That becomes a norm for her.

"Lockdown was a classic example for these abusers to do ... whatever they wanted to do. They're in control. I can see it my community."

Coping with the problem costs money. That's another concern.

Lamb calls the Government funding a "drop in the ocean" of what is required.

"We're facing a situation where the number of older people in New Zealand is set to double in the next ten to 15 years.

"We're running very hard to keep pace at the moment and the population is outstripping us."

Source

• Stuff

Sufferers "are often victims of violence, mistreatment and abuse that crushes their dignity," Francis said during his weekly general audience at the Vatican, in a message to mark World Alzheimer's Day on September 21.

"Let us pray for the conversion of hearts, and for those affected by Alzheimer's, for their families and for those who care for them lovingly," he said. Read more

As we age, we become the accumulation of a life's worth of wisdom and experience.

Unfortunately, the price of that wisdom is too often an increased vulnerability by other means.

Elder abuse is, in many ways, the hidden face of the domestic violence discussion Australia has been rightfully having for many years now.

Whereas we often think about it in terms of intimate partner violence, intergenerational violence and exploitation is something we are only now beginning to consider in similar terms.

Friday is World Elder Abuse Awareness Day, and perhaps there is a simple, pertinent question to put forward: are you aware that, as best we can tell, 167,000 people face some form of elder abuse each year in Australia?

I say "as best we can tell" because the data is hardly comprehensive, in no small part because of almost certain underreporting.

An older person having problems with their family may be afraid to seek help or report it, or not know where to go for help, or perhaps even not think to seek help in the first place.

Since leaving the Human Rights Commission and joining Justice Connect, I have encountered story after story of older Australians dealing with abuse in its many forms.

I've heard of women like Margot, a 73-year-old woman with schizophrenia.

She arranged for her son to return home to care for her, only for him to become verbally abusive, ridiculing and demeaning her in public.

She was unwilling to have her son removed from the home despite this, as it meant potentially making her son and grandchildren homeless.

I heard of a woman I'll call Maya, who came to Australia to spend her twilight years with her daughter. The daughter almost immediately took possession of Maya's valuables and bank account details, with which she bought herself a new car.

Under the pretext of taking her mother out for a "spin" the daughter then unceremoniously left Maya on a bench out the front of an aged care facility.

They haven't spoken since.

These stories of abuse and exploitation go beyond more widely understood, and catalogued, tales of physical violence.

Elder abuse is a complicated issue which sits at the nexus of ageing, poverty and mental health, and it requires serious, sophisticated solutions that are sensitive to the needs of the older person.

Healthcare workers are there to meet the physical and emotional needs of older people.

But that cannot be not the whole solution.

How are these dedicated nurses, physiotherapists and social workers to deal with questions of power of attorney, property or patients being pressured to change their wills? Continue reading

• Image: Daily Caring