Families who have taken their elderly parents to nursing home facilities hope that they are given the best treatment and taken good care of by the caregivers. It is a heart-wrenching decision that these families have to make and the worst experience they can have is when they find that their elderly parents have been abused. Sometimes, the people entrusted to provide care for aging parents might turn out to be abusive. If your elderly parent has been abused while at a nursing home facility, you may want to seek the help of a personal injury lawyer experienced in handling such cases.
Nursing home abuse as well as neglect has become common. There have been incidents of the nursing home workers mocking, poking, or even spitting on the patients. Some workers even go to an extent of touching the genitals of the patients and doing many other crazy things.
What causes abuse of the elderly?
Understanding the cause of abuse in assisted living facilities is something that isn’t always straight. Physical abuse in assisted living facilities may be committed out of frustration. When these facilities are understaffed, the few workers are overwhelmed and feel that the work is just too demanding. In such situations, the caregivers may intentionally commit abuse because of the frustrations they are dealing with.
Insufficient training is also another possible cause of the abuse of elderly people in these facilities. While in this case, the abuse and neglect may be unintentional, you find that the effects are as serious as those related to intentional abuse.
What to do when your parent is abused
When abuse occurs, the administration in these facilities may try to conceal it, however, when you detect that your parent or grandparent has been abused, you can seek justice and compensation. There are, however, signs that can help you know if an elderly parent is being abused such as improper administration of medications, unsanitary living conditions, malnutrition, soiled clothing and bed linens, bruises, bleeding around anal and genital areas, or noticing bloody undergarments.
There are also financial exploitations where the caregivers misuse the checks, credit cards, and accounts of the elderly or even steal money. If these or any other form of abuse has happened, you want to seek help of nursing home abuse attorneys.
You do not want your parent or grandparent to be subjected to an abusive environment when in hands of caregivers. So you need to make follow-ups and be keen to look out for signs of abuse whenever you visit these patients.
A personal injury lawyer experienced in handling nursing home abuse cases can help the family members get financial compensation for the damage or harm perpetuated to the resident. An attorney should be sought soon after the elderly has been taken away from the facility to prevent further abuse.
