Discuss the adequacy of ‘carer stress’ as an explanation of elder abuse.

To fully understand the question of how adequate carer stress is we firstly need to look at what is elder abuse and what is carer stress then we can actually see how adequate it is in the explanation of elder abuse compared to that of any other explanation of elder abuse. As Mervyn Eastman suggests elder abuse is the “systematic maltreatment, physical, emotional or financial, of an elderly person by a care-giving relative. (Eastman 1984 pg 23.) Where as others such as Whitehead suggests it is more physical, “individuals sometimes assaulted people close to them and then either forced or conspired with them to make out the resulting injuries were sustained accidentally.” (Decalmer and Glendenning 1997 pg 13)
Elder abuse is not a knew idea but how to treat or cure it is, it has been suggested that because people within the family unit are starting to live longer the chance of elder abuse is growing. Grandparents are seen as the figure heads of the family and are sometimes used f...