These cases could range from financial or psychological abuse to serious assaults, she said.
Statistics showed at least two elderly people were abused or neglected every day in New Zealand, physically, psychologically, financially or sexually.
Ten political parties surveyed recently by Age Concern unanimously agreed that more needed to be done to protect vulnerable people in our communities.
Ms Davidson was commenting on the Auckland rest-home case where a tradesman photographed a resident whose mouth had been taped shut, supposedly because she made too much noise.
New Zealand First said the abuse and neglect of older citizens was an appalling indictment on our communities and the party strongly supported an expansion of education and awareness programmes, as well as an increase in wages for rest-home workers.
"The empowerment of older citizens to know their rights and the ways of seeking help should be a major focus."
The Green Party said it was committed to understanding the problem and providing funding for more accessible prevention services nationwide.
The Government provides more than $1.5 million a year for elder abuse and neglect prevention services but many parties believed there needed to be an increase in funding to improve the quality of care, provide training and monitor workloads.
For the Maori Party, prevention of elder neglect and abuse rested primarily with strengthening the ability of whanau to care for and respect each other, the survey on the Age Concern website said.
Ms Davidson said research showed most abuse of the elderly occurred within families and, like any family abuse, that made it difficult for people to speak out.
Family members might be the only people the elderly saw and if they moved against them they could fear being absolutely alone.
"Elder abuse is as serious as other family abuse. Some of these people are as vulnerable and helpless as small children," she said.
The elderly could fear retribution and some would not be physically able to tell anyone about their predicament.
Sometimes people were not aware their actions were abusive. For instance, a carer could jump to the conclusion that if a meal left in front of an elderly person had gone cold, untouched, that the person had not bothered to eat it.
The carer might not realise that the person was unable to eat it, Ms Davidson said.
When abuse was suspected it could be dealt with in a number of ways, in some cases including prosecution.
Age Concern warned that assessing elder abuse and neglect situations required special skills and that people who worked in this area were highly trained.
It was important not to jump to conclusions and to respect the rights of older people to control their own lives, as far as they were able.
In the rest-home situation, the obvious person to talk to first was the manager.
Elder Abuse and Neglect Prevention services, district health board funding and planning managers, the Health and Disability Advocacy Service and the Ministry of Health were all ready to investigate suspected elder abuse and neglect.
