Free Legal Shield Nursing Home Abuse lawyers are concerned about our seniors injured in Nursing Homes. Below are some guidelines to recognize nursing home Abuse. Your senior parents and grandparents must be protected,

Emotional Abuse

Emotional abuse is any action with the intent to cause emotional or psychological injury to another.

Examples:

• Threatening of any kind.
• Belittling.
• Humiliating.

Symptoms of Emotional Abuse:

• Those typical of dementia- Mood swings, paranoia, biting, sucking, etc.
• Behavior becomes withdrawn.
• Suffering from anxiety that was not present before.

A Verbal Abuse Story:

Topsfield’s Masconomet Healthcare Center in Topsfield, Massachusetts was found in 2011 to have four employees who regularly engaged in verbally abusing nursing home residents.

Some of the verbal abuses included:

• The recording of a dementia patient while taunting her.
• A Nursing Assistant (N.A.) telling a resident she had slept with the resident’s husband and that the resident’s husband was leaving her.
• A N.A. telling a resident that she would die in the facility.
• Multiple N.A.s calling a resident fat; the same resident had a cookie shoved into her mouth while a N. A. called her a pig.
• N.A.’s mocking a patient with a penile implant.

Physical Abuse
Physical abuse is any action with the intent to cause physical injury to another.

Examples:

• Hitting or slapping.
• Biting.
• Not handling a patient with care when transferring them to or from a wheel chair or bed.

Symptoms of Physical Abuse:

• Unexplained bruises, sprains, abrasions, skeletal fractures, and/or burns.
• Bleeding and bruising in private areas.
• Damaged undergarments.
• Sudden behavior changes.
• A visitor is forbidden to see a resident alone by the caretaker.
• Obvious over-medication or under-medication.
• New health problems.

A Physical Abuse Story:

A Cleveland, Ohio nursing home aide was caught on camera hitting a 78-year-old Alzheimer’s patient, throwing her into her bed and wheelchair, and shoving her face into the wall. In one instance, the aide struck her in front of another employee, who did nothing.

Neglect
Neglect is any action with the intent to deprive another of things necessary to their well-being.

Examples:

• Not providing enough food or water.
• Not ensuring proper hygiene.
• Not ensuring cleaning medical tools.

Symptoms of Neglect:

• Dehydration.
• Malnourishment.
• Under-medication.

A Neglect Story:

A resident of Evergreen Lakeport Healthcare has her call light ignored which resulted in her sitting in her own urine for hours.

A VA hospital in Pennsylvania was found to be neglecting its patients. One male patient’s toe was rotting and no one did anything until maggots began to pore out of a hole in his toe.

Sexual Abuse
Sexual abuse is any non-consensual contact of a sexual nature.

Examples:

• Molestation.
• Rape.

Symptoms of Sexual Abuse:

• Bleeding and bruising around genitalia.
• Damaged undergarments.
• Sexually Transmitted Infection/s
• Genitalia infections.

A Sexual Abuse Story:

At Southwood Nursing Center in Virginia, an elderly woman was sexually assaulted by another resident. The male resident was known to have been arrested 59 times; some of his arrests included sexual assault and child molestation. He used a wheel chair to block the door so no one would disturb him.

Financial Exploitation
Financial Exploitation is the taking of another’s monetary or material assets with or without their permission, or through coercion.

Examples

• Stealing of money or possessions.
• Coercing a resident to sign over his/her financial responsibilities.
• Stealing of social security checks.

Symptoms of Financial Exploitation:

• Money withdrawals made that a resident could not have made.
• Sudden changes to a resident’s legal documents.
• No longer receiving pension or social security checks.
• The resident no longer has control over his/her financial matters.

A Financial Exploitation Story:

A Chicago nursing home patient had over $4,000 electronically withdrawn from her banking account by a nursing home staff member. The staff member was only caught after the resident’s family noticed withdraws from the resident’s account over a period of months.