The prevalence of undiagnosed geriatric health conditions among adult protective service clients

Abstract

Purpose: We sought to determine the prevalence of remediable health conditions from in-home geriatric assessments of referred adult protective service (APS) clients suffering elder mistreatment. Design and Methods: We used a retrospective cohort study of 211 APS clients (74% female; age, M = 77 years) in two central New Jersey counties. Results: Dementia was the most frequent diagnosis (62% prevalence) and was positively correlated with occurrences of financial exploitation (R = .199; p = .01) and caregiver neglect (R = .174; p = .03) among female APS clients. Depression (37% prevalence), hypertension (36%), involuntary weight loss (34%), pain (32%), and falling (26%) all appeared equally distributed, though urinary incontinence (23% prevalence) was strongly correlated with circumstances of caregiver neglect (R = .31; p = .003). Implications: This new effort to link APS workers with geriatric clinicians conducting in-home health assessments proved effective for identifying a high prevalence of remediable health conditions among APS clients suffering various manifestations of elder mistreatment. Copyright 2005 by The Gerontological Society of America.