
Emotional abuse is one of the forms of mistreatment that may occur in a nursing home, and may be affecting your loved one. According to Healthline, some behaviors that may qualify as emotional abuse include:
- Telling your loved one that they are worthless.
- Calling your loved one names.
- Threatening your loved one with physical harm or neglect.
- Using words to strike fear or anxiety of any sort into your loved one.
- Raising one’s voice as a form of intimidation.
- Ignoring or mocking serious pleas for help, especially if they involve a medical problem.
- Intentionally humiliating your loved one, either while alone with them or in front of their peers.
Emotional abuse can take many forms, so if you suspect your loved one of being the victim, you should contact us as we handle emotional abuse in nursing homes. Call a Berwyn emotional abuse lawyer with Pintas & Mullins Law Firm today to speak about your suspicions of emotional abuse and your options for legal action.
Emotional Abuse Can Be Crippling to Elderly Victims
Inflicting emotional abuse on someone of your loved one’s age can compound any existing physical, emotional, and mental problems that they have. According to findings published in The Journal Of Clinical Medicine, psychological and emotional abuse can lead to:
- Decline in mental health, often manifested as depression.
- Damage to the cardiovascular system, which can lead to potentially fatal events such as stroke or heart attack.
- Decline in neurological function.
- Decline in mental function.
- Worsening physical fragility.
- Increased dependency on others.
If your loved one is the victim of emotional or psychological abuse, they may require treatment specifically for the effects of the abuse. Pinpointing the proper course of treatment will depend on discovering what sort of abuse your loved one is exposed to.
You May Notice Abuse-Induced Changes in Your Loved One
Keep an eye out for changes in your loved one that could be caused by emotional or psychological abuse. Such changes may include:
- The onset of anxiety beyond any level that your loved one previously experienced.
- The gradual loss of happiness, joviality, and other positive aspects of your loved one’s personality.
- Symptoms of depression, which may include being lethargic, ceasing activities that they usually enjoy, isolation from social settings, sleeping longer than usual, and requesting that you not visit.
- Reacting with fear to your words or physical touch.
- Losing weight without explanation.
- Losing hair.
- Urinating on themselves.
- Telling you that they suffered mistreatment by somebody in the nursing home setting.
You should be in tune with any changes to your loved one’s personality that concern you, as that could be a sign that they endured emotional or psychological abuse. If you find out that such abuse is happening, the next step is figuring out who is responsible.
Your Loved One’s Caregivers Could Be Predators
You put your loved one in a nursing home for their wellbeing. Predators, though, can hide in plain sight, appearing as caring, competent caregivers or administrators but abusing your loved one when they believe that nobody is watching.
A lawyer can help you deal with the available facts so that you can not only identify the person or people responsible for your loved one’s abuse, but pursue justice against them.
For a free legal consultation with a Emotional Abuse Lawyer serving Berwyn, call (800) 794-0444
A Lawyer Can Help Investigate and Adjudicate Your Case
It benefits you, your loved one, and your lawyer to have as much evidence of wrongdoing as possible when pursuing compensation in response to your loved one’s abuse. This means that a Berwyn emotional abuse lawyer will have an interest in finding out who perpetrated the abuse, how they did it, and who else is responsible for allowing such abuse to happen.
There are a couple of different parties that may have some level of responsibility for emotional abuse inflicted on your loved one. This may include:
- Any resident, nurse, doctor, staffer, or another person who directly perpetrated emotional abuse — or any other form of mistreatment — against your loved one.
- Upper management, a group of people who are generally responsible for ensuring that any nursing home is a safe place where residents are tended to properly.
When a nursing home resident is abused, it is often the result of failure on many different levels. While the fault of the abuser is often clear, those who run a nursing home may have made themselves culpable for your loved one’s losses by:
- Knowingly or unknowingly hiring employees who have red flags within their work or personal histories.
- Failing to maintain functional, comprehensive means of monitoring residents and employees. This may include but is not limited to maintaining proper staffing numbers, ensuring video monitoring, and ensuring that no single employees have too much power or freedom.
- Failing to instill in staffers the importance of treating residents with integrity.
- Failing to train employees on what emotional abuse is, and the damaging effect that it has on its victims.
- Failing to report allegations of abuse or neglect.
A Berwyn emotional abuse lawyer will collect evidence of any negligence that occurred, both by the perpetrator of abuse and anybody who is responsible for that perpetrator’s actions. From there, they will put together and execute your loved one’s case for compensation.
Berwyn Emotional Abuse Lawyer Near Me (800) 794-0444
Call Our Team at Pintas & Mullins Law Firm Today
We will defend your loved one against the responsible party who violated their right to safety, and if successful, your loved one may collect compensation for:
- Medical bills.
- Pain and suffering.
- Ongoing care costs.
- Any other abuse-related expenses.
Call our team today for a free consultation. You pay nothing up front or out of pocket, and we only get paid if you win.
Call or text (800) 794-0444 or complete a Free Case Evaluation form