To become old is usually to become invisible. Not always, and not always completely, but very often. Shakespeare has a person growing through seven ages and stages, and then moving inexorably into the time of 'the lean and slippered pantaloon', after which the individual's 'strange and eventful history' sinks into 'mere oblivion'.
Horror stories about the process abound. Whereas fortunate people have an interesting and rewarding old age followed by what the Greeks call a kalos thanatos, a good death, the unfortunates are many, and their plight is often ignored or unknown.
For elder abuse resembles child abuse in its iceberg qualities: both categories have received little attention until comparatively recently.
And in the case of elder abuse, very few cases ever come to court: old people are just as helpless as children, and are similarly unable to plead their own cases. And are afraid to: they have little power. The Yiddish proverb springs to mind: If you can't bite, don't show your teeth.
The loss of power and independence are features of old age, and so, often, is isolation. In Greece still, old people usually live in a three-generation set-up, but can often feel lonely within it.
'She never tells me anything,' an old Greek woman once complained to me about her daughter-in-law. She did not complain about the room that shocked me: the bare boards, the wind whistling through cracks in the walls, the fact that there was nothing there apart from a narrow bed and a small cupboard. No, it was the sense of being out of things, the lack of social interaction, that mattered.
The lack of control is another problem. My sons' great-uncle was 87; he knew he was near death and, with that Greek spirit of acceptance, was quite calm about the prospect. But the young village doctor insisted he go to hospital, where various measures could and would be taken.
Uncle Vangelis begged his children to let him die at home: he had never spent even an hour in hospital. The children, predictably, listened to the doctor, and so the poor old man was loaded into an ambulance. He was dead within 24 hours, also predictably.
Of course there are many worse cases: in comparison, these examples can hardly be termed abuse. But in both instances there was an implicit lack of respect; there was also no acknowledgement of the old person's pride, dignity, and wishes.
The term abuse is a blanket and umbrella one in