When a family member can no longer take care of themselves, they may have to enter a nursing home to receive the care, supervision, and attention they need for their health and safety. The nursing home has the legal responsibility and moral duty to ensure that the residents of their facility remain safe at all times.
The people that have an obligation to protect and safeguard these residents often abuse them through physical, sexual, psychological, or financial means. Residents that suffer any type of abuse in a nursing home may experience physical, psychological, or financial challenges after their abuse.
If you suspect or have evidence that your loved one experienced abuse in a nursing home, learn more about all of your legal options to pursue justice by hiring a Jacksonville nursing home abuse lawyer at Pintas & Mullins Law Firm. Call us today at (800) 842-6336.
Types of Nursing Home Abuse
Elder abuse is the infliction of harm on a resident of a nursing home by a staff member, which results in the intentional infliction of injuries or creates a risk of harm, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). There are four types of nursing home abuse.
Physical Abuse
Any physical pain, illness, or injury that results from a nursing home employee exuding physical force of any kind onto an elderly resident is physical abuse. Physical abuse can include actions such as hitting, slapping, pinching, biting, burning, pushing, or kicking an elderly resident. Additionally, physically restraining an elderly resident in an attempt to punish them or to obtain compliance is also physical abuse.
Sexual Abuse
As horrible as it is to think about, sexual abuse occurs in nursing homes against elderly residents. Sexual abuse is any unwanted sexual interaction that occurs with an older adult. This can include sexual penetration or any kind of sd contact.
Additionally, sexual harassment is a form of abuse that may occur against elderly residents of nursing homes. In some cases, the sexual abuse does not come directly from an employee of the nursing home, but rather by one resident against another resident.
In some unfortunate cases, when elderly residents with Alzheimer’s disease or dementia get sexually abused, they might not be able to report what happened to them. Nursing homes have a responsibility to protect their residents from any kind of physical or sexual abuse, even among each other, through careful supervision and monitoring.
Psychological Abuse
Any verbal or nonverbal actions or words that in any way inflict emotional anguish, mental suffering, fear, anxiety, depression, or distress on an older resident of a nursing home is psychological abuse.
In some cases, staff members of nursing homes may berate, humiliate, yell at, threaten, or manipulate elderly residents due to their position of power. Some residents may suffer from cognitive challenges and not understand what they need to do or not understand why they are enduring this type of psychological torture.
Any attempt to instill fear or anxiety into an elderly person is psychological abuse. While this type of abuse may not result in physical injuries, many elderly persons that suffer from this type of abuse experience long-term effects, including post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, fear, depression, and loss of enjoyment of life.
Financial Abuse
Because elderly residents live in the nursing home, they have a great deal of reliance upon the staff members to provide them with water, food, and assistance throughout the day. This typically means that staff members will have access to the room of a resident.
As a result, an elderly person may find that their money, credit cards, or personal belongings go missing. In other cases, an employee may just take the credit card number or debit card number to purchase items for themselves. In even more unscrupulous cases, an employee of a nursing home will endear themselves to a confused elderly person and get them to actually change their estate planning documents to include them in an inheritance after they pass away.
What to Do if You Discover Nursing Home Abuse
If you discover that your elderly loved one suffered any kind of nursing home abuse, these are some of the options available to you and your family.
- Contact the management of the nursing home immediately in order to start an investigation.
- Contact local law enforcement, depending on the facts and circumstances of your situation involving nursing home abuse.
- Contact the Elder Care Hotline at 1-(800) 677-1116.
- Contact Adult Protective Services in your local area.
- Consider hiring a nursing home abuse lawyer at Pintas & Mullins Law Firm to learn more about your legal right to file civil or criminal charges against the nursing home.
For a free legal consultation with a Nursing Home Abuse Lawyer serving Jacksonville, call (800) 842-6336
How a Jacksonville Nursing Home Abuse Lawyer Can Help Your Family
Nursing home abuse lawyers can help families after the discovery of horrific abuse in the following ways:
- Gather information from the nursing home, including witness statements, photographic evidence, and medical or financial records.
- Conduct an independent investigation, including hiring expert witnesses regarding the elder abuse.
- Navigate all appropriate federal and state abuse laws to ensure that your loved one and your family receive justice.
- File a claim in a court of law within the statute of limitations deadline to ensure your loved one has the ability to fight for their legal right to receive compensation as well as justice for their medical expenses, financial losses, or pain and suffering.
- Negotiate a settlement with the nursing home company that fairly and justly compensates your elderly loved one for the abuse they received.
- Take the case to trial if negotiations do not result in a fair and just settlement for your loved one or for your family.
Consider hiring a Jacksonville nursing home abuse lawyer at Pintas & Mullins Law Firm at (800) 842-6336 to learn more about how we can help you understand all of your legal rights and help ensure you receive justice for your loved one.
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