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


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).


CONCLUSIONS
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.
Heath
John M
JM
Department of Family Medicine, University of Medicine and Dentisttry of New Jersey, USA. Heathjm@UMDNJ.edu
Brown
Merle
M
Kobylarz
Fred A
FA
Castaño
Susan
S
D000368:Aged; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004552:Elder Abuse; D005260:Female; D015577:Geriatric Assessment; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009515:New Jersey; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012947:Social Work