When an older loved one moves into a senior living facility, you expect them to receive customized care that meets their health and wellness needs. Yet they do not always receive this care. If you believe your elderly loved one was harmed while residing in such a facility, contact a Cordova nursing home abuse lawyer.
Once the resident is safe in your care, discuss legal action with experienced personal injury attorney David E. Gordon. Nursing home abuse is, unfortunately, a widespread problem that requires contacting the state government. Exposing assisted living facilities that abuse or neglect their residents is the key to combating the problem and helping vulnerable Americans enjoy life without pain and fear.
What Are the Types of Elder Abuse?
Abuse in nursing home environments takes many forms, including physical, sexual, and emotional/psychological. Any of these abuses calls for legal action with the help of an attorney.
- Physical Abuse: Staff members at these facilities might threaten physical violence against their charges or resort to restraining, hitting, shoving, pinching, or slapping them. Other physical abuse can include biting, kicking, and grabbing, or using assorted objects to inflict injuries.
- Sexual Abuse: Sadly, sexual violations can occur in nursing homes, and might include unwanted touching, feeling, or groping, in addition to intercourse. It is another form of physical abuse that happens to residents who are unaware, incapacitated, or non-cognizant.
- Psychological/Verbal/Emotional Abuse: Such abuse can include insulting seniors about their appearance or intelligence, calling them names, threatening to prevent family members from visiting, implementing various forms of isolation, and limiting transportation and phone use.
- Financial Abuse: Some nursing home staffers refuse to give residents’ access to their funds or related documents, such as bank statements. They might try forging documents to obtain money, or deceiving residents into giving up their financial rights. Other financial abuses include theft of possessions or money, and misusing power of attorney.
Nursing Home Neglect
General neglect also falls under the umbrella of senior abuse and includes either purposefully or unwittingly failing to provide enough food and water, leaving residents alone for lengthy periods of time, failing to clean residents after urination and bowel movements, failing to administer medications correctly, ignoring or dismissing residents’ complaints, failing to ensure residents’ safety, and not reporting injuries or illnesses. If any of these things has occurred to an elder, their friends or family should contact a Cordova nursing home neglect attorney immediately.
What Are the Most Common Signs of Senior Abuse?
Older loved ones who experience abuse can display one or several warning signs/symptoms. They might have unexplained bruises, lacerations, or burns, or untreated infections and illnesses. Abused seniors often behave fearfully, especially around staff members who are hurting them. Their personalities can change for seemingly no reason, causing them to appear depressed and uninterested in once-enjoyable activities.
Other clear warning signs include soiled clothing, unusual weight loss, dehydration and malnutrition, unsanitary living conditions that include dirt and vermin, and broken eyeglasses and mobility equipment. David suggests that individuals who believe their elderly family members are suffering abuse should take photos for evidence purposes, such as images of bruises and cuts, and unclean living quarters.
Local elder care facility abuse lawyers use images to show the judge or court that abuse has clearly taken place. They also recommend reporting abuse to the Tennessee Adult Protective Services to strengthen the case.
Contact a Cordova Nursing Home Abuse Attorney About Your Case Now
No one who lives in an assisted living facility should live in fear of daily abuse. Discuss your case with a Cordova nursing home abuse lawyer at the Law Office of David E. Gordon. We can fight for your loved ones’ rights and might be able to recover damages that pay for future care.
Do not hesitate to contact us and learn what we can do for your family. By taking on an abusive nursing home, you could prevent this tragedy from happening to other families.
