ELDER ABUSE IN CANADA: A GROWING DILEMMA IN AN AGING SOCIETY

摘要

According to Statistics Canada, eight million adults will be over the age of 65 by 2031, nearly 25 percent of the population. Increasingly, older adults report being victims of abuse, even though Canada has actively addressed the problem since the early 1980s (Podnieks, 1989). This presentation describes the most recent study to quantify the extent of elder abuse and neglect in Canada (McDonald, 2016). More than three quarters of a million Canadian elders suffered some form of abuse last year, more than double the 1998 finding. One reason could be a rise in financial abuse, the second most frequent form behind psychological abuse. The most important risk factor was depression, followed by having been abused in another stage of the life course. This presentation describes the study’s guiding theoretical framework, methodology, and findings and draws conclusions and offers implications for future research and services for maltreated older adults in Canada.