Level of Prevention - Essay Example

ed person is treated and evaluated from the point of view of potential for future risk and (c) tertiary prevention, which includes the involvement of the family and community in ensuring that an abused victim is protected from further abuse and that the physical, psychological and emotional damages caused to the elderly person are addressed, treated and prevented from future occurrence. Rosalie Wolf categorizes primary prevention measures as the use of those screening tools that would help to identify elders who at risk to be abused in the future, while secondary prevention involves the evaluation of an elder who is already being abused in order to assess the risk of future abuse in order to devise appropriate measures to cope with it.

(Wolf, 2000). The results of several elderly abuse assessment tools have been combined into one comprehensive test – the H-S/EAST Test (Hwalek Sengstock Elder Abuse Screening test). This test uses a set of 15 assessment criteria which are intended to measure three different levels of abuse (a) actual incidence of direct abuse or a violation of the personal rights of the elderly person (b) the extent to which the elderly person is vulnerable to abuse and individual characteristics that increase vulnerability and (c) the identification of potentially abusive situations.

This 15 point assessment tool that is executed through a series of questions wherein the elderly person is asked to list any instances where harm or hurt has been caused and this test has been recently enhanced through the additional of additional questions such as “Are you afraid of anyone in your family? “Has anyone close to you called you names or out you down or made you feel bad recently?” (Scofield et al, 1999). The efficacy of this test was also tested in a study conducted in a city in Florida to assess abuse among the elderly living in public housing and the results of the study suggested that the test is useful in measuring various facets of abuse,