Centre for Policy on Ageing



The secret shame of the very old: "I've never told this to anyone else"
Author(s)	Barbara M Barer
Journal title	Journal of Mental Health and Aging, vol 3, no 3, Winter 1997
Pages	pp 365-375
Keywords	Crime ; Elder abuse ; Mental health [elderly] ; Emotions ; United States of America.
Annotation	The prevalence of crimes against older people is difficult to assess because some incidents of victimisation may not be reported. This paper describes the risks and repercussions of incidents of victimisation found among a sample of 150 community-dwelling older Americans aged 85 years and over. None of the incidents had been reported. The study participants had kept these occurrences of fraud, theft, exploitation and in some cases, mistreatment by home care workers, secret, mainly because they feared being judged incompetent by others. Rather than expose their shame, the victims usually accepted blame and concealed the incident. The paper concludes with a discussion of the physical, social, and psychological consequences of victimisation in older people. (AKM).
Accession Number	CPA-980706407 A
Classmark	TWA: QNT: D: DL: 7T
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...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.