What Is Nursing Home Abuse?

According to the Nursing Home Abuse Center, disabled adult and elder abuse in nursing homes can come in the form of physical, emotional, sexual, or financial harm.

Examples of nursing home abuse include:

• Neglect: This is when staff either incompetantly or intentionally neglect residents, including late or missed medications, failure to respond when called for assistance, and an inattention to the cleanliness of their environment or their bodies.
• Financial exploitation: Stealing, overcharging, or unfairly withholding money from nursing home residents is an abuse of their trust and may be a crime. Similarly, visitors or other staff may help themselves to a resident’s data or documents — these are also legally acknowledged violations.
• Emotional injury: Taunting, insulting, or belittling elders is a disgusting form of psychological abuse. Such harm may easily go unreported or denied in cases of Alzheimer’s or dementia patients — their calls for help may be deemed unreliable due to their condition.
• Sexual assault: Molestation, rape, and sexually-based humiliation or mockery are forms of sexual assault, and should have no place in a home for elders, the infirm, the vulnerable, or anywhere.
• Physical abuse: Physical abuse can range from forcing residents to remain in uncomfortable positions, to outright attacking or beating them. Nanny cams have captured egregious incidents of elder abuse on camera, which is one way to gather proof of abuse.

Whether the nursing home abuse stems from individual staff members (as is common in cases of physical abuse), or from the facility’s management (as in cases of overcharging or undermedicating to save costs), such treatment is unacceptable.

The nursing home abuse attorneys at Pierce Skrabanek will help investigate your circumstances, and build a case to identify and bring to justice the person or organization responsible. Call us at 832-690-7000 today to discuss your situation.

How Can You Recognize and Record Evidence of Elder Abuse?

Abusers know to hide the signs of their misdeeds. That is why abuse of the elderly is often difficult to recognize. The National Institute on Aging lists symptoms of elder abuse in nursing homes as when the patient:

• Has unpaid bills, eviction notices, or bank communications warning of low funds
• Appears unwashed or in dirty clothes
• Complaints about mistreatment, lack of care, or discomfort
• Displays bruises, cuts, burns, or scars inconsistent with normal injury
• Has trouble sleeping
• No longer enjoys long-beloved activities or becomes withdrawn
• Exhibits unexplained weight loss
• Acts out violently
• Shows trauma behavior like agitation or rocking back and forth
• Lacks appropriate medical aids (like walkers, dentures, hearing aids, or glasses)
• Develops bedsores or shows signs of restraint (wrist cuff marks or bruising across chest)
• Has unclean or unsafe/hazardous living conditions

You do not need to obtain evidence of elder abuse alone, and in fact your loved one may be unsafe if an abuser suspects you are investigating them by yourself. Call a nursing home abuse attorney at Pierce Skrabanek right away by dialing (832) 690-7000 — we’re here to provide advice on what to do first.

Priority one is removing the injured party from the abuse. When it comes to gathering evidence, let your lawyers do that for you while you care for yourself and your family.