Shining a Light on Elder Abuse and Neglect

A few weeks ago, I devoted a blog to our grantees who received awards at the recent GSA meeting in New Orleans. Before the meeting began, one of our grant programs, Building Academic Geriatric Nursing Capacity (BAGNC), held its annual Leadership Conference. I am happy to report that another grantee was recognized there for her outstanding work: Terry Fulmer, PhD, RN, FAAN, who received the 2010 Nurse Leader in Aging award. Dr. Fulmer, Dean of the College of Nursing at the College of Dentistry, New York University, has shown outstanding leadership in nursing education, research, and practice.

While Dean Fulmer has contributed in many ways, her own research focuses primarily on elder abuse and neglect. The issue of elder abuse—physical, emotional, or financial abuse committed against vulnerable older adults--has long been a poor second cousin to child abuse. Few people know much about it, or even think it’s important. Thankfully, that is starting to change. The Elder Justice Act passed last spring as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. It allocates (but not yet appropriates) $777 million over four years to improve adult protective services, provide training for complaint investigators, and enhance long-term care staffing, among other provisions. Recently, another grantee, Beeson scholar XinQi Dong, MD, MPH, Associate Professor of Medicine and Gerontological Nursing at the Rush Institute for Healthy Aging, received a health care infrastructure grant from the National Institutes of Health to study elder abuse and neglect in Chicago’s Chinese American community. The project, which will test the effectiveness of conducting research entirely in the community’s native language, will hopefully serve as a model for research in other ethnic communities.

In addition to conducting research, Dr. Dong is eager to raise awareness of elder abuse. His recent appointment as a 2010-11 Health and Aging Policy Fellow will give him the opportunity to work with policy makers and advisors on health and aging issues. Recognizing Dr. Dong’s commitment to advocating for better safeguards for vulnerable older adults, the Institute on Medicine as a Profession recently honored him with their annual Physician Advocacy Merit Award, which awards $10,000 to two to three physicians showing outstanding commitment to patient advocacy.

I salute Drs. Fulmer and Dong for their work investigating what drives elder abuse and neglect as well as their efforts to formulate solutions to the problem. Reducing elder abuse and neglect is an important component of helping frail, vulnerable older adults improve their health and their lives.