[Study on abuse and neglect of the disabled elderly living at home].

To obtain basic information on elderly abuse and neglect in order to provide for its early discovery and prevention, a questionnaire survey about the present situation regarding abuse and neglect of the disabled elderly living at home was performed on health/medical service/welfare professions. Forty-two cases were analyzed. The major results were as follows; 1. Victims were 13 men and 29 women, approximately 1/3 of whom were in their 70's and another 1/3 in their 80's. Approximately 1/4 of the abusers were either sons or daughters of the victims. 2. Verbal abuse was the most frequent type of abuse with a rate of 69.0%. The percentage of psychological abuse was 61.9, passive neglect was 57.1%, active neglect was 50.0%, physical abuse was 47.6%, passive self-neglect was 28.6%, financial/material exploitation was 23.8%, active self-neglect was 16.7% and the others was 11.9%. The average number of abuse and neglect that an elderly received was 3.5. 3. The main causes of abuse and neglect did not appear to be simple but was complicated by related causes, many of both victims and abusers had elements in their personality, developmental history and interpersonal relationships that over a period of years formed the basis for the problematic behavior. Many abuse or neglect cases arose from caregiving burden of family caregivers or insufficient social systems for support to meet the needs of caring for the elderly. 4. The results suggest that for prevention and countermeasures for elderly abuse, there is an urgent need to arrange for expansion of health and welfare services to reduce burden of caregivers, provide for education of professionals of health/medical service/welfare for early discovery and proper handling of abuse problems, development of a checklist for early discovery, expansion of opportunities of improving care skill for family caregivers and establishment of consultation system for the elderly and caregivers, and organizing emergency shelter for victims of elderly abuse.

[Caregiving burden of elderly caregivers who provide at home care for infirm elderly].

In order to elucidate the degree of feeling burdened and factors affecting caregiving burden of elderly caregivers, a questionnaire survey was performed on 241 female caregivers of infirm elderly. The surveyed group consisted of 138 caregivers under 60 years of age (young group) and 103 aged 60 and over (old group). The major results of this survey were as follows, 1) Conditions perceived as unfavorable in the old group were related to caregiving assistants, number of the family members and health condition of the caregiver. 2) Greater number of infirm elderly with serious ADL problems and higher average body weight of the elderly cared for were seen for the old group than the young group. 3) The old group had a larger number of problem incidents and expressed more eager desire for transfer of elderly to institutional care than providing the young group. 4) A feeling of burden in daily care appeared larger for night care, body discharge disposal and bathing care of the elderly and was more frequent in those above 70 than under 70 years of age. 5) Hours in bed were longer and range of movement by wheel chair was more limited for infirm elderly as the caregiver's age increased. These results suggest that the above-mentioned unfavorable conditions in elderly caregivers promote a state of becoming bedridden and a lowering of ADL ability of infirm elderly.