Nursing Home Abuse and Elderly Abuse
According to reports by ABC News, the Center for Disease Control (CDC), and the National Center on Elder Abuse (NCEA), There are around 15,600 nursing homes in the United States, 69.8% of which are for-profit entities. These nursing homes and assisted living facilities serve an estimated 1.7 million people. Tragically, nursing home abuse is a significant public health problem. Each year, hundreds of thousands of our friends and family over the age of 60 are abused, neglected, or exploited.
According to the reports cited above, 30 percent of nursing homes, 5,283 facilities, were cited for nearly 9,000 instances of abuse from January 1999 to January 2001. Common violations that caused harm to nursing home abuse victims included untreated bedsores, inadequate medical care, malnutrition, dehydration, preventable accidents, and inadequate sanitation.
Nursing home residents and the elderly have the right to be treated with kindness and respect. If you or your loved one feels that they have been humiliated, harassed, threatened, or physically abused, Cooper Law Partners will fight with everything we have to ensure that you receive maximum compensation for all the physical, mental, and emotional damage caused by the abuse.
Types of Elder Abuse
Nursing home abuse and elderly abuse can take many forms:
- Physical Abuse – Physical abuse is one of the most common types of nursing home abuse. Common signs of physical abuse may include broken bones, bloody or torn clothing, scars, bruises, and other injuries.
- Mental Abuse – Mental abuse can be just as, if not more, damaging than physical abuse. Nursing home staff that berate, insult, or demean the very people they are paid to protect and assist are guilty of mental abuse.
- Emotional and Psychological Abuse – Examples of emotional or psychological abuse may include intimidation, threats of harm, frightening or scaring, or playing mean-spirited tricks on residents.
- Financial Abuse – Financial exploitation is the most common form of non-physical abuse. Examples of financial abuse include identity theft, fraudulently securing authorization for withdrawals or money transfers, improper changes to wills or powers of attorney, odd additions to insurance policies, forgery, misuse of the elder’s credit cards, checks, and other payment instruments, and classic theft.
- Sexual Abuse – Disturbingly, caretakers, nursing home staff members, other nursing home residents, and visitors are capable of sexually abusing elderly residents of nursing homes and assisted living facilities.
- Neglect – Neglect occurs when a resident is abused by the failure to provide sufficient care to a victim. Examples of neglect include providing irregular or insufficient meals, preventing sleep, failing to administer medicine properly, and failing to meet personal hygiene needs.
We’ve seen the horrors of elder abuse first-hand. We focus on helping victims recover physically, emotionally, and financially from the harm done.
