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The Forum > Article Comments > Elder abuse – the ‘long-term grinding down of the soul’ > Comments

Elder abuse – the ‘long-term grinding down of the soul’ : Comments

By Paul Russell, published 24/6/2013

There is also psychological or emotional abuse, a lot of verbal abuse, and we're not talking about fights in families but talking about long-term grinding down of the soul.

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The long term grinding down of the soul.
This is the best definition I have ever seen of abuse against others, for this is what it does.
Abused as a wife, I cannot imagine how devastatinbg it must be to be old, ill and helpless and suffer abuse.

Keep writing and speaking of this abomination in our midst.

Lorraine
Posted by Hilily, Monday, 24 June 2013 3:43:25 PM
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How fortunate we are that people like Paul know what older citizens want much better than they do themselves! To you or me it may look like Granny is bed-ridden, incontinent, eaten up with cancer, miserable and longing for death; but Paul's X-ray vision can look beyond that and see that she would be happy, healthy and youthful, if only her blasted relatives would leave her alone in the loving care of those skilled professionals who are feeding her pills and stuffing tubes into her orifices.

When old or sick people say they are tired of life and want to die, it is the absolute height of arrogant condescension to blithely inform them that, no, we know what's good for them, far better than their relatives do, far better than they do themselves, and if they are sick of a bedridden, agonisingly painful existence, well then they must be off their heads, and obviously can't be trusted to make rational decisions! This is a cruel and despicable Catch-22, and I find it repellent to encounter the loathesome kind of mind that could regard it as even remotely satisfactory.
Posted by Jon J, Monday, 24 June 2013 9:43:12 PM
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Paul I'll thank you to mind your own damn business, & get the hell out of other peoples lives.

You must be the ultimate interfering know it all do gooder, & are not welcome in our lives.

Many of us are approaching the time when it will be time to go. Many know what lies ahead for us, & have no desire to go through the long painful death we have seen our loved ones suffer.

Once incapacitated we would endanger our loved ones to help us go, thanks to fools like you & your fellow lobbyists. You actually force many to go, while they still can do it by themselves, often before they would otherwise chose. Does that make you feel good?
Posted by Hasbeen, Tuesday, 25 June 2013 12:21:45 AM
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Paul, I believe that forcing elderly people to continue living against their will should also be classed as elder abuse.

Suggesting that psychiatrists should 'assess' all elderly people who request euthanasia, in case they are clinically depressed, is ridiculous .
The mere fact that they are asking to die suggests that they are not happy to continue living, whether their reasons are physical or emotional.

It is not up to any so-called anti-euthanasia group to decide what everyone else should do.
It's pretty simple really, if you want to battle out a terminal illness to the last breath, then you go right ahead, no one will stop you. But please don't try and stop anyone else because it is not your business.
Posted by Suseonline, Tuesday, 25 June 2013 1:27:44 AM
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We've gone through the painful experience
with my mother-in-law about a year ago,
when she passed away. Prior to her passing,
she had been diagnosed with alzheimers
and had been living in a nursing home. She
did fine for about six months and then she
lost bladder and bowel control, could not
dress herself, feed herself, or transfer from
bed to chair to bathroom.

She stopped eating and drinking and her doctor
told us that this was quite common in people
on the tail-end of alzheimers. The doctor
kept her in the nursing home under palliative-care.
It was difficult to deal with the agony of her
vegetation. However her doctor did not pursue
a vigorous therapy to preserve her life. He simply
saw to it that she was comfortable. She finally lost
her functional and mental independence completely.
And passed away.

I realise that physicians are expected to do all they
can to sustain life. However, after our experience
I seriously question patients being hooked up for days,
months, or years,
to machines that sustain their lives even if they are
in constant pain, or permanently comatose. I feel that
technologies that were intended to save people from
unnecessary death should not be used to have the effect
of depriving them of a dignified death.
Posted by Lexi, Tuesday, 25 June 2013 3:33:22 PM
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Thank you for this article. My own daughter is not yet 50 yrs old and is already subjected to name calling by her daughter. 'Stupid' is the common one and assertions that she knows nothing occurs daily. About 30 years ago, I saw this happening to an elderly man who was intelligent, educated, and had so much to give but was silenced into depression. At that time there were no organisations to help, now there are. When the elderly are sick, suffering from chronic pain and yet are uncared for and abused, they well may prefer death and therein lies a danger of the ultimate abuse. Yes, there are many cases of wanting to assist a loved one to leave this world, however if only one wants to die to escape abuse, then the law must stand to protect them.
Posted by just_dulcie, Sunday, 30 June 2013 12:04:04 PM
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Euthanasia and assisted suicide are two different but equally controversial issues, and lumping them together only fuels the controversy. Euthanasia is generally defined as the bringing about of a gentle and easy death in the case of incurable and painful disease, whereas suicide is the intentional killing of yourself irrespective of whether you have an incurable or painful disease.

Just because you are tired of life is not euthanasia, but you are still free to commit suicide. However, such tired of life people cannot be ‘assisted’ to intentionally kill themselves without the assistant being considered a killer.

Moreover, euthanasia (bringing about a gentle and easy death) is not necessarily elder abuse – but prolonging the death of a dying person, arguably, is.

Unfortunately, other forms of elder abuse continue to be, shamelessly, rampant and it unequivocally is contributing to victims committing suicide, and it must be addressed before we can progress with the euthanasia debate. Sadly, highly emotive - and ignorant – comments only aid those stubbornly opposed to euthanasia. To suggest that concern for elder abuse by relatives (or others) is nobody else’s damn business is akin to suggesting that concern about a child being sexually or physically abused by a relative is nobody else’s damn business. We simply must break the silence.

It is indisputable that many family members – including baby boomers - are abusing their older relatives. It is also an absolute fact that (often in order to placate cashed up junior relatives with a sense of entitlement) many lawyers and doctors are abusing older people by either deeming them as having capacity when they don’t have it, or deeming them as lacking capacity when they still have it. It is also unequivocal that elder abusers include Public Advocates, Public Trustees, Administrative and Guardianship Tribunals and other members of government funded elder abuse alliances. That’s correct; the purported protectors are often the perpetrators.

Deal with elder abuse as the separate issue that it is – via nothing less than a royal commission – and stop muddying the waters by linking assisted suicide with euthanasia.
Posted by SHORT&SHARP, Monday, 1 July 2013 4:10:24 PM
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