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ensure accuracy. Elder Mistreatment: Abuse, Neglect, and
Exploitation in an Aging America Sweden and Denmark, Tornstam
(1989) queried respondents about whether they had observed or
knew about specific cases of persons who had been physically
battered, threatened, economically abused, robbed, or severely
neglected. The overall rate defined this way was 8 percent, but
most cases were due to a single incidence of theft. The
definitions were not always consistent with those used in other
elder mistreatment studies, but most importantly, the individual
respondent was not the unit of analysis. Podnieks (1992)
reported the findings from a representative telephone survey of
Canadians age 65 and older. Domains included physical abuse,
neglect, psychological abuse, and “material abuse.” The overall
prevalence rate was about 4 percent, but