Ahead of yesterday’s (8-14-09) shocking charges of elder abuse in Quincy, a Medford nursing assistant was charged Thursday with punching and kicking an 83-year-old Alzheimer’s patient entrusted to her care at a senior center in September 2008, according to the attorney general’s office.
Marie Michael, 54, a certified nursing assistant of Medford pleaded not guilty to charges of elder abuse during her employment at EPOCH Senior Healthcare of Melrose.
The assault was witnessed by the 83-year-old patient’s roommate, prosecutors said.
Hours after Michael’s arraignment, Kara A. Murphy, 23, was arrested in Quincy in the alleged assault of several women in her care at the Atrium at Faxon Woods.
The charges highlight the prevalent problem of elder abuse, which experts say is little more than “bullying” and “power control” over the patients.
Elise Beaulieu, an expert on elder abuse at Boston University’s Institute for Geriatric Social Work called the alleged abuse “tragic.”
She said institutional abuse “betrays the trust families (place in nursing homes) to care for their loved ones. These are horrible breaches of trust,” she said.
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