Making a decision to place a loved one in a nursing home can be a tough one. Despite how necessary it may be, the act of surrendering a parent’s or grandparent’s well-being to someone else can take a toll on us..
Furthermore, as the Baby Boomer generation becomes older with each passing year, nursing homes and adult care facilities become increasingly crowded. Seeing as they are full of elderly people who require ongoing medical and professional monitoring, elders may not receive the same amount of care they previously did.
Why Does Nursing Home Abuse Happen?
We trust nursing homes to offer the proper care with professionalism and compassion. Unfortunately, because seniors are weak and more prone to manipulation, unscrupulous persons could misuse their influence.
This frequently occurs due to the nursing home employees being overworked, underpaid, and inadequately trained. Caregivers may take their frustrations out on the fragile patients in their care.
This article is here to shed light on these atrocities affecting the elderly in nursing homes. It is also essential to know what to do when you suspect negligence. Either report it to the Adult Protective Services or know when to file a medical malpractice claim. If loss of life occurs, note that this is a criminal offense that shouldn’t be swept under the rug.
1. Physical Abuse
Physical abuse is defined as a physical force that may result in bodily harm or physical pain. For example, shoving, hitting, pinching, or striking.
Additional types of physical abuse include purposeful medication errors and involuntary confinement, the force-feeding of seniors, and any form of physical punishment.
2. Sexual Abuse
Sexual abuse is defined as any sexual interaction with an older person not consented to by both parties.
It is also considered sexual abuse when sexual contact is had with someone unable to agree to the encounter. This category may include unwelcome touching and all forms of sexual assault or battery, such as rape, sodomy, coercive nudity, and sexually explicit photographs, among other things.
3. Psychological Abuse
Emotional or psychological abuse is described as the intentional inflicting of agony, pain, or suffering on another person by using words or nonverbal behaviors. Verbal attacks, insults, threats, intimidation, humiliation, and harassment are examples of emotional and psychological abuse.
Acts that are also considered emotional or psychological abuse include the following: Treating an elderly person as though he or she is a child, isolating an elderly person from his or her family, friends, or usual activities, and giving an elderly person the silent treatment and enforcing social isolation.
4. Financial Exploitation
Abuse of an elder’s finances, property, or assets is described as unlawful or illegal use.
Examples are as follows: Trying to cash an elderly person’s cheques without permission or consent, attempting to forge an elderly person’s signature, misappropriating or trying to steal a senior’s financial resources, extortion, manipulating an elderly person into signing any document, and the unlawful use of temporary custody, custodianship, or power of attorney.
5. Neglect
Neglect is the unwillingness or failure to perform any element of a caregiver’s responsibilities or obligations to an older person, regardless of the reason. Additionally, failure to provide care for an elder, such as by failing to pay for essential home care services, is also considered a form of neglect.
Other examples include denying basic needs, personal cleanliness, medications, comfort, and physical security.
6. Abandonment
When someone abandons an older person, it is described as the desertion of the senior citizen by an individual who has undertaken duty for sustaining elderly care.
7. Self-Neglect
Self-neglect is defined as an older person’s behavior that endangers his or her own health or safety.
Seek Help by Filing a Lawsuit
Combining the information in this article with your own intuition will enable you to identify symptoms of abuse and safeguard individuals you care about. Especially those who are scared or have difficulty communicating properly.
If you suspect nursing home abuse and fear that one’s life is at risk, call local law authorities immediately to report it. And, if the risk is not immediately apparent, you should contact your local Adult Protective Services organization to report your suspicions.
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