"Is Someone Hurting You?"

"I'm noticing you have a bunch of bruises," I say to my fairly robust 92-year-old patient.  "I have to ask... has someone been hurting you?"

"Well...."

"You can tell me if something's going on, and we can try to help."

"Well...."

"Seriously, is someone hurting you?"

"When I was eight, there was this neighbor...."

"Um, we can talk about that if you want, but I actually meant more recently.  To cause these bruises...?"

"Oh, someone hurting me now?"

"Yeah."

"No, no one's hurting me.  I just fall a lot."

"You sure?  No one's getting frustrated and hitting you?"

"No!  I would hit back!"

"Okay, I just wanted to make sure."

"So you don't need to know what happened when I was eight?"

"Not unless you need to talk about it, in which case we can, or I can refer you to someone who you can talk to...."

"No, I'm okay."

"Okay, great.  Now let's talk about your medication list...."