There are five ways an elder can be abused: physical, psychological, sexual, financial, and neglect (citation needed). Staying alert to signs and symptoms of abuse. Listening intently to the elder.
Physical.
Physical abuse can be categorized as something that is done to the elderly on purpose and it manifests in a form of bruise, lacerations, broken bones/teeth, or muscle soreness (Watson, 2013). This form of abuse can happen at the elderly's home inflicted by a caregiver or in a residential facility by the staff. At home, watch for signs such as broken glasses of the elderly and the refusal of the caregiver to allow you to talk to the elder alone. Patients who may have temporary or permanent mental issues may be combative or they may have the risk of falling down their bed. Without psychiatric medications they may cause harm to themselves or to the nursing staff. For this reason some nurses restrain them. If they do not use the proper material and protocol, those restraints can bruise or cut the patient. CCTV cameras installed in some nursing facilities showed how impatient nursing staff physically abuses the elderly. Perhaps because there is a shortage of nursing staff and the nursing assistant was in a hurry and so they become rough in handling the patients to the point of shoving them to be seated on their chair, slapping them, or using inappropriate drugs to knock them out so that they stop calling nursing assistants from their beds. .
Psychological .
Psychological abuse can be verbal or non-verbal. According to Eileen Watson, verbal abuse can be forms of "threat, intimidation, yelling, humiliation, or ridicule and non-verbal abuse can be in a form of isolating the elderly from group activities or confining the patient away from social activities". There were more reports of emotional abuse than physical abuse among the elderly but such cases are hard to detect during investigation (Williams, 2016).