Women face a myriad of ongoing and complex ethical dilemmas in caring for a frail elder (Bopp & Coleson, 1996). An ethical dilemma can be defined as a conflict in which the caregiver must make a choice “between two or more relevant, but contradictory ethical directives, or when every alternative results in an undesirable outcome for one or more persons” (Loewenberg, Dolgoff & Harrington, 2000, ...

Elder mistreatment is recognized internationally as a prevalent and growing problem, meriting the attention of policymakers, practitioners, and the general public. Studies have demonstrated that elder mistreatment is sufficiently widespread to be a major public health concern and that it leads to a range of negative physical, psychological, and financial outcomes. This article provides an overv...

PURPOSE This longitudinal study examines the association between physical function decline and the risk of elder self-neglect in a community-dwelling population. DESIGN AND METHODS Of the 5,570 participants in the Chicago Health Aging Project, 1,068 were reported to social services agency for suspected elder self-neglect from 1993 to 2005. The primary predictor was objectively assessed physic...

Older adults with dementia may be at high risk for abuse, but the topic has not been well studied. We conducted a literature review to examine the relationships between elder abuse and dementia. We found that psychological abuse was the most common form of abuse among older adults, with estimates of its prevalence ranging from 27.9 percent to 62.3 percent. Physical abuse was estimated to affect...

Folk medicine has been around for millennia exploiting first wild then cultivated plants to prevent or cure a myriad of illnesses. Black elder have been used for centuries in Europe (French 1651), northern Africa, and some parts of Asia for such purposes as to keep the evil spirits away, to prevent or cure numerous ailments and health problems. Early settlers brought some of this knowledge to A...