Elder abuse is when harm or distress is caused to an older person through a single or repeated act, or lack thereof, in a relationship where there is supposed to be trust and support.
While there are many types of elder abuse — physical, emotional, financial, fraud, and scams — Santa Barbara’s Senior Deputy District Attorney Vicki Johnson explained, “The kind of abuse that I’m really concerned with is neglect.” Neglect is a form of physical abuse, and it often goes undetected. Johnson notes that there have been several deaths in Santa Barbara in recent years that have resulted from neglect.
“The way it often manifests is in bedsores,” she said. While we often don’t think of bedsores as deadly, if gone untreated, they can go right down into the bone and become septic. However, unlike other forms of physical abuse, situations of neglect rarely get reported. “If somebody punches you in the face and you call the police, it is very obvious and easy to investigate and prosecute,” she explained. “But when somebody is brought into the hospital with a bedsore, on the verge of death, that becomes a lot harder to investigate because nobody has reported it and nobody has gone to the police.”
