Nursing Home Abuse

Placing our loved ones in a Nursing Home can be a hard thing to do, therefore it is always important to make sure that we are not placing our loved ones in the wrong Nursing Home that puts their well being in danger.

A congressional report showed that an examination of nursing home records conducted over a two-year period showed that nearly 1 in 3 nursing homes were cited for violations that had the potential to cause harm and almost 10 percent of all nursing homes have violations that caused actual harm, serious injury or placed them in jeopardy of death.

A survey of nursing home residents showed that up to 44 percent of nursing home residents reported that they had been abused at some time in residency and nearly all of those surveyed (95%) had seen another resident neglected.

This can be a quite a depressing statistic

Due to reports like these, legislatures in all 50 states have passed anti-elder-abuse laws but nursing home abuse continues to occur.

Nursing home abuse can involve:

Physical Abuse is a condition or event that causes physical harm. Physical abuse may be intentional such as hitting or pinching or it may be due to neglect including overuse of restraints and lack of physical care.

Sexual Abuse is unwanted sexual attention or exploitation. This includes sexual attention given to a patient who is unable to express his or her wishes or is cognitively compromised such as the patient with dementia.

Psychological Abuse is not easily identified but can include yelling, criticizing, humiliating or otherwise shaming the patient. Patients who are experiencing psychological abuse may exhibit behavioral changes.

Financial Exploitation occurs a caregiver takes advantage of access to a patients financial matters, steals or otherwise compromises the patient’s financial status. This could include direct theft, theft from banking accounts or applying for credit in the patient’s name.

Neglect is often unintentional and a result of inadequate staffing. Neglect occurs when a patient’s needs are not taken care of such as personal hygiene care or when the patient is not provided food, clothing or water.

Neglect can contribute to a number of medical conditions such as bed sores, skin infections, malnutrition and dehydration.

Resident to Resident Abuse occurs when one resident is allowed to abuse another. Resident to resident abuse may be physical, sexual or psychological. Nursing home patients should be protected from other residents.