a survey conducted across the country by helpage india an ngo supporting the aged revealed that sons are the most common offenders in abusing the elderly of the 218 persons surveyed in madurai as part of the 5014 persons surveyed in 23 cities pan india 51 of the perpetrators are sons while daughtersinlaw constitute 49helpage india has been conducting such annual surveys on different themes since 2013 covering different cities every year the theme for the survey this year is changing cultural ethos and impact of technology chennai and madurai are the only cities in tamil nadu where the survey was conducted this year where the survey was randomly conducted over a period of six monthsa many as 26 face abuse by their daughters while 15 by their spouses or partners 6 by grandchildren and only 2 by sonsinlaw the abuse could be physical verbal mental or neglect some of the elderly persons face abuse by more than one person a total of 94 abusers are in the lower income and have not been to a college manager of helpage india madurai k v vijayprakash saidsixtyone percent of the surveyed elders in madurai feel that extreme attention given to phones and computers at home and neglecting the physical presence of elders is disrespectful while 26 does not feel that way as many as 53 of them have claimed that their children use mobile phones at home and 55 claim that grandchildren too use mobile phones at home and ignore themsuggestionsvijayprakash said that abuse of elderly prevailed in a cross section of the society it is not necessarily physical abuse in some middle class families the elders are denied quality treatment children are busy or dont care to take parents to the hospital and suggest home medication or get medicines from the pharmacy the ailment of the parent is not diagnosed and they suffer mentally due to neglect he addedstating that the ngo has been providing free medicines though their mobile clinic to around 2000 to 2500 people in the district every month he said some parents used to lament over their children abusing them for not dying and prolonging death by taking medicines the survey team suggested sensitising children and strengthening intergenerational bonding increasing economic independence of the elderly to end the abuse the report was released by collector k veera raghava rao