Elder abuse is prevalentin New Zealand, with one in ten people aged 65 and olderexperiencing some form of it and only one in 14 abuse casesbrought to the attention of a service agency that canintervene.
Last year alone there were numerous mediareports featuring accounts of neglect,financialexploitation and physicalor verbal abuse of older people.
However, elderabuse is notoriously difficult to study. Those experiencingabuse often avoid disclosing these experiences for a varietyof complex reasons. It is often friends, other familymembers, neighbours or practitioners who realise thatsomething harmful is happening to the olderperson.
Some forms of ill treatment are immediatelyidentifiable as abuse. But elder abuse can also be verysubtle, which makes it difficult for older people topinpoint when it happens and for others in the community torecognise it.
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Our recent studyexplores a poorly understood form of elder abuse known as“cold violence” within the Chinese community in AotearoaNew Zealand. We interviewed older Chinese migrants, midlifeChinese migrants caring for older parents and practitionerssupporting Chinese migrant families.
Althoughparticipants saw similarities in types of elder abuse acrosscultural groups, they described cold violence asparticularly common.
What is ‘coldviolence’
Cold violence is a form of emotionalabuse that occurs within care relationships. It happens whenthe person with more power and resources in the relationshipcompletely and intentionally withdraws communication andemotional support for a sustained period. Cold violence isused to punish people for particular conduct or to limittheir independence and freedom.
This form of abuse isincredibly difficult to detect. Other forms of abuse haveclear signs. Physical abuse may leave telltale marks.Suspicious bank transactions can be monitored and traced.Signs of neglect may be seen in malnutrition and poorhygiene. They are materially evident.
Cold violence,on the other hand, is open to interpretation. Bystrategically withdrawing emotional support and care, peoplecan powerfully punish the older person without leaving anyevidence, thus maintaining plausible deniability.
Thismakes cold violence difficult for older people to identifyand for service providers or authorities to challenge.Family members and carers can argue they didn’t doanything wrong. This failure to respond to need is whatmakes cold violence a form of abuse.
Understandingthe context
Participants in our study commonlymentioned refusal to engage with older familymembers.
It’s like they see you but actas if they don’t.
Chinese culturevalues filial reverence and there is an expectation that theconcerns and needs of older generations are prioritised.Being rejected by family is verydamaging.
Consequently, older Chinese people in ourstudy considered cold violence as the most unacceptable formof abuse that can happen to an older person. They told usthat withdrawal of verbal communication and emotional carewas made worse by demeaning nonverbal behaviours, such aslooks of “disdain” or “disgust”.
They agreedthat being treated this way had a “negative impact ontheir mental health”, making them “feel heartbroken”.One participant likened it to mentaltorture.
Experiencing cold violence can also leaveolder people unable to meet their basic needs. In thecontext of Chinese family arrangements, older parents whomigrated in later life are often highly dependent on youngerfamily members.
They might lack language skills, theability to drive and knowledge of institutional systemsnecessary to independently navigate everyday life. In thesesituations, the withdrawal by family members is a highlydestabilising experience, leaving older people unsure how toact and often without alternative sources ofsupport.
Making sense of cold violence
Familycarers are commonly under significant financial, emotionaland time pressure and receive relatively little formalsupport for care. However, there was a clear mismatchbetween how practitioners and family carers framed emotionalwithdrawal as carer stress and the way it was experienced byolder people as cold violence.
Chinese migrantsproviding care for older parents agreed that cold violencewas concerning. However, they saw it as the unintentionaloutcome of limited time and resources. As one participantexplained:
There are old people above andyoung children below, and their energy is limited […] Theyhave tried their best.
Practitioners alsoattributed neglectful behaviour to carer stress.
Thismismatch highlights the need to understand older people’sperspectives and to provide continuous education about lessobvious forms of elder abuse. Awareness raising shouldextend beyond older people to include family members,practitioners and the wider community.
Cold violenceis not unique to the Chinese community, but it may beexperienced differently across cultural groups. Regardlessof the cultural context, being treated in this way is anunsettling and undermining experience for olderpeople.
We have a collective responsibility to createsafe environments for people to be able to age with dignity.This starts with understanding how our actions canintentionally or unintentionally cause harm to older peoplein our families and communities.
Disclosurestatement
Ágnes Szabó has received funding fromthe Ageing Well National Science Challenge and the RoyalSociety of New Zealand.
Mary Breheny has receivedfunding from the Ageing Well National Science Challenge forthis research.
Polly Yeung has received funding fromthe Ageing Well National Science Challenge for thisresearch.
ÁgnesSzabó, Senior Lecturer, TeHerenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington;MaryBreheny, Research associate, TeKunenga ki Pūrehuroa – Massey University, and PollyYeung, Associate Professor, TeKunenga ki Pūrehuroa – MasseyUniversity
This article is republished from The Conversationunder a Creative Commons license. Read the originalarticle.
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