Is there a lesser value type of violence? Older people abuse: "The silence of the lambs".

• Violence against older people is one of the least known forms of violence, despite being significantly represented worldwide. • Nowadays, the most common types of violence are neglect and psychological or emotional abuse. • The keywords "elderly abuse" led to a low number of results, showing low interest in this topic. • This type of abuse is little reported and not adequately addressed. Social and structural changes are of primary importance. • This paper is a call to the scientific community to study epidemiological and medico-legal aspects of older people abuse. The World Health Organization (WHO) describes gender violence as a real global health problem with a major impact not only on the victims' physical and mental health, but also on the economics of the National Health System. Gender-based violence has been also extended to all types of subjects defined as fragile: children, elderly, women, men and disabled people. Older people abuse, more frequent in women, is a far less socially debated issue, with many forms: physical, sexual, psychological, abandonment, neglect, economic-financial, pharmaceutical, discriminatory, institutional. An electronic literature research was carried out search using the keywords "elderly abuse" on various online sources. The research showed low number of results and little attention to this topic in the scientific literature. The paper highlights how the theme of older people abuse is little reported and not adequately addressed in scientific literature and in real life, being a form of violence certainly underestimated by the public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]