This article describes how abuse and neglect of the elderly was made an issue for research in a Nordic perspective. The Council of Nordic Ministers funded a cooperation between Nordic researchers on the issue of abuse of the elderly, based on a Norwegian initiative in 1988. The aim was to establish a base of knowledge in order to recommend social and political measures for each country. The researchers were chosen from the disciplines of social work, social anthropology, sociology, nursing sciences and medicine. Interested researchers were hard to find in Iceland and Denmark. Important results are on a theoretical level the discussion and perspectives on the definition of "family", "violence" and "elderly". On the practical level the results reveal that between 8% and 17% of a random population sample in Denmark, Sweden and Finland knew about elderly people being abused in their homes. Between 1 and 8% of elderly people living in their homes are being abused by their close kin, according to either the old people themselves or as reported by home nurses. In one of the Swedish projects 12% of close family members, being responsible for the care of a demented, mostly spouse or parent, admitted abuse towards the demented person. Swedish home nurses described the difficulties in intervening into the abusive families.