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 …