Unit 2

Behavioral Indicators of Abusive Caregivers

• Verbal berating, harassment, or intimidation
• Threats of punishment of depriving of essential needs
• Isolating a person from friends or other family members
• Treating the individual like an infant
• Leaving a person alone for long periods of time
• Withholding affection to gain compliance
• Unwillingness to comply with service providers in planning for care
• Obvious absence of assistance, attitude of indifference or anger toward the victim
• Giving a person no privacy
• Denying a person the right to make decisions
• Demonstrates inappropriate sex-role relationship
• Inconsistent or implausible explanation of injuries
• Handles the person roughly or in a manner that is threatening, manipulative, sexually suggestive or insulting
• Excessive concern about cost of caring for the older person or reluctant about spending money or paying bills.

Suspicious Explanations

• "The injury was an accident."
• "The victim fell."
• "There was no abuse...she bruises easily."
• "It was a gift."
• "She owed me the money."
• "He gave me permissions to have, use, borrow it."
• "I was going to give it back."
• "He refuses services."