Cooper, Claudia

One cannot imagine that an individual with dementia could be abused by their carers who, more often than not, are close family members. Yet sufferers stand a high chance of falling victim to abuse because of their vulnerability. In this next article, Colm Owens and Claudia Cooper explain how they went about finding out from family carers of dementia sufferers how far abuse can go in order to understand what drives an individual to act in such a way.

Objectives: To test the hypothesis that family and professional caregivers have different views about what constitutes elder abuse.

Design: A vignette was given to family and professional carers. They were asked to rate 13 management strategies for behavioural difficulties in a person with dementia on a Likert scale ranging from good idea to abusive. Some of the strategies were abusive according to the Department of Health's ‘No Secrets’ definition.