A fifth of elderly people in Israel are abused

doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7490.498-c

BMJ 2005;330:498 (5 March), doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7490.498-c

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A fifth of elderly people in Israel are abused

Jerusalem Judy Siegel-Itzkovich

Israel�s first national survey of elder abuse has said that 18.4% of elderly people reported being abused in the previous year. Rates of neglect were among the highest in the world, while rates of physical and sexual abuse and limitation of freedom were similar to those in North America, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Hong Kong. Economic exploitation and verbal violence were more common in Israel than in many of those countries.

The types of abuse were neglect (18.0%); verbal (8.0%) or physical or sexual abuse (2.0%); limitation of freedom (2.7%), or economic exploitation (6.6%) by a spouse or adult child. Some people had been abused in more than one way.

Elderly Arab women were most vulnerable to physical abuse and limitation of freedom. Ten per cent of Arab women complained of physical and sexual violence against them during the past 12 months (compared to 2.1% of . . . [Full text of this article]

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