Person-Centered Approaches to Prevent and Address Elder Mistreatment

Elder mistreatment is an understudied form of family violence affecting approximately one in six older adults worldwide (Yon, et al., 2017) and 1 in 10 older Americans each year (Acierno, et al., 2010). These estimates are conservative and expected to grow as the Baby Boomer cohort ages into older adulthood (Bonnie & Wallace, 2003), resulting in an increased need for prevention programs, investigatory skill sets and resources, and supportive services for vulnerable older adults. Despite emerging need, existing programs and services to address and prevent elder mistreatment are critically flawed and limited in scope. For example, though key differences exist between the functional and cognitive abilities and legal rights of older adults and minor-aged children, traditional elder mistreatment response systems have largely been modeled after child maltreatment investigation and intervention practices. Thus, many traditional programs are statutorily bound to implementing standard protocols and approaches which are unable to accommodate specific client goals, needs, and preferences for care. Consequently, it is not uncommon for older adults to forgo programs and services meant to support victims. Further, while experts agree that prevention of elder mistreatment is crucial to protect against its devastating effects, there are currently no known programs to prevent elder mistreatment that have proved effective. To address these limitations, recently elder mistreatment practitioners and researchers have sought to develop person-centered programs to address and prevent elder abuse and neglect. With its roots in healthcare interventions designed to more effectively improve patient health and well-being, person-centered care approaches seek to accommodate individual care needs and preferences to provide an effective, receptive, and respectful response to mistreatment. Person-centered approaches can also be applied to risk factors (e.g., caregiver burden) to reduce the likelihood that mistreatment will occur and to prevent escalation of already occurring mistreatment. Drawing from their research and experience in designing, implementing, and evaluating person-centered interventions to prevent and respond to elder mistreatment, speakers will share lessons learned and resources used. Specifically, they will: 1) Discuss the need for implementing person-centered approaches to elder mistreatment; 2) Describe existing programs implementing person-centered approaches to elder mistreatment; 3) Discuss methodological approaches and tools for assessing client needs and preferences and creating person-centered programs to prevent and address elder mistreatment; 4) Share methodological approaches and tools for evaluating person-centered elder mistreatment interventions ; 5) Discuss ethical and legal issues that may arise when implementing person-centered approaches to care; and 6) Identify commonly expressed preferences for care and program responses to these preferences. Presenters will seek input from audience members on these challenging issues. Our goal for this session is to advance the case person-centered approaches to prevent and address elder mistreatment, and engage in dialogue to uncover unexamined pitfalls and potential solutions to guide next steps in this area of research.