Elder Emotional Abuse and the Family

The term elder emotional abuse is often used interchangeably with the terms elder psychological abuse and elder verbal abuse. The behaviors encompassed within each such term vary across authors, increasing the difficulty of arriving at accurate measures of incidence and prevalence. In general, however, emotional abuse includes verbal assaults, such as yelling, name calling, swearing, and insults; rejection and rejecting statements; humiliation; expressions of disgust or disregard; threats of punishment, institutionalization, or abandonment; verbal harassment, fear-inducing threats; and lack of attention. The abuse may be committed intentionally or unintentionally by a family member, a friend, a professional or nonprofessional caregiver, or a health care worker. The emotional abuse may occur in a domestic setting, such as the elder's home, or in an institutional setting, such ...