Tanya F. Johnson – författare

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Mistreatment of the elderly became recognized as a serious and growing problem in the late 1970s, as a result of governmental investigations and research in the public and private sectors. Although in most states elder mistreatment is handled by social service agencies, other professionals are also needed to broaden the identification team and help alleviate the risk to the older adults. This book is designed for human services professionals who are not necessarily adult protective services specialists, but who provide direct ongoing services to elder adults. Its purpose is to offer guidelines for detecting elder mistreatment, so that assistance can be given to the vulnerable older adults to preserve their particular quality of life.The book is arranged into seven chapters. The first discusses why elder-serving human services professionals should become involved in mistreatment identification, while chapter two focuses on the various starting points in the definition of elder mistreatment. Chapters three and four review research on risk factors in elder mistreatment and detail varieties of mistreatment measures and methods for distinguishing between them. A review of risk instruments used in adult protective services and non-adult protective services settings forms the basis of chapter five, and chapter six outlines a proposed risk assessment model, specially designed for elder-serving human service professionals. The final chapter offers some prospects for the future of elder mistreatment risk assessments. The work concludes with a set of four appendices, covering contact persons in lead agencies, report-receiving authorities within jurisdictions, health status risk assessment, and prevention strategies. This volume will be a useful tool for human services professionals, mental health care providers, and social health care and legal services professionals, as well as a useful addition to reference collections in public, academic, and medical libraries.

Johnson addresses ethical issues in aging in a variety of contexts—the social cultural environment, physical health care, mental health care, social health care, legal care, and spiritual care. Because long-term aging has created a new generation of older adults, some new issues are emerging which need to be addressed from an ethical perspective—elder abuse, physician assisted suicide, dementia, intergenerational equity, guardianship, and living wills. A wide range of experts including physicians, philosophers, lawyers, social workers, nurses, sociologists, public health persons, theologians, historians, and ethicists share their insights on the ethical issues and dilemmas older adults in American society are facing or are likely to face over the life course. Of interest to undergraduate and graduate faculty and students in sociology, social work and social services practitioners, policymakers, and academic and professional libraries.