The aim of the present study was to understand EMTs’
experience detecting and reporting elder abuse to APS.
Findings suggest at least five barriers inhibited EMT’s
ability to detect and/or report abuse or neglect. First,
EMTs noted that older adults may elect or even prefer
to live in environments that EMTs perceive as intrinsically
neglectful. This reduces the EMT’s confidence in
making the decision to report abuse, as “[The older adult
is] willingly living in a house with their daughter or
niece, granddaughter, whoever, and it’s filth and you have
roaches crawling allover the walls… and you sit there
and [think], ‘is this really abuse?’” In other words, EMTs
perceive that the living conditions are normative to the
older adult, or that the older adult might prefer to live
in a neglectful lifestyle rather than being placed in a
nursing home:
“…They grew up in [that environment] and that’s what
they’re used to, and that you know the 65-year-old, the
woman … [who] was living in piles of trash, she
wanted to live there and didn’t want to move out, she
was fine living in that, and its not fair [to assume
abuse or neglect] you know?”
Similarly, one EMT reported:
“APS has been out there and determined it was an
[unsafe] situation and… removed the patient from the
house and put them in a nursing home, and I have
been out there for that… The patient is going ballistic
all over them, ‘You can’t take me away from my house