Older women's understanding of elder abuse: Quality relationships and the ‘stresses of caregiving’

Specifically feminist perspectives are largely absent from the developing discourse of elder abuse in the United Kingdom. This paper describes how focus groups were used to gather older women's understandings and experiences of elder abuse. A perspective on elder abuse that prioritises relationships, rather than action or behaviour, is proposed as central to assessing the relations of abuse in later life. © 2002, MCB UP Limite