When To Intervene: Suspected Nursing Home Abuse

Nursing Home Lawyer

As the loved one of someone in a senior nursing home, you may worry about their safety. You may ask yourself whether the facility you placed him or her in is good enough, and whether doctors and staff take care of their residents properly. Nursing home abuse happens more often than people want to think about, as this means their own relative could be in danger one day. If you feel like something suspicious could be going on behind closed doors, then it’s important to intervene quickly. 

Signs of Nursing Home Abuse

Nursing home abuse can take on many forms, including financial, mental, emotional, physical, and sexual abuse. Any behavior that harms another is considered abuse, even if the perpetrator had not done so intentionally. Here are examples of signs that mistreatment may be happening to your senior relative:

  • Pressure ulcers or bed sores
  • Malnutrition
  • Emotional outbursts
  • Personality change
  • Withdrawing from loved ones
  • Refusing medication
  • Being scared of certain staff members
  • Not being able to explain injuries
  • Fall injuries
  • Dehydration
  • Illness and infection
  • Insomnia
  • Fatigue
  • Broken bones
  • Cuts, bruises, and other wounds
  • Unexplained weight loss or gain
  • Unsanitary living conditions or clothes

Forms of nursing home abuse may include assault from physically punching, hitting, kicking, slapping, shaking, or verbally threatening. A resident that is neglected may exhibit physical symptoms associated with prolonged deprivation of food and water. Staff may utilize restraint tools more firmly than they should, potentially leaving behind marks around the wrists and ankles. 

As a Nursing Home Lawyer from Brown Kiely, LLP can attest, realizing that your senior loved one may be in danger can be terrifying. Taking the next steps by contacting authorities, hiring a lawyer, and safely removing your relative from the facility can make all the difference in their healing and obtaining justice.

It’s important to intervene quickly to suspected nursing home abuse; read on for further insight into the intervention process.