Nursing Home Abuse Report » Types of Nursing Home Abuse » Neglect for Elder Care Patients in Nursing Homes
Signs of Elder Abuse
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Neglect for Elder Care Patients in Nursing Homes
Nursing home abuse can be physical, emotional, financial and sexual. It also includes neglect and healthcare fraud.
Elder care patients may be subject to various forms of abuse and neglect. Neglect is a passive type of elder abuse. Unlike physical abuse which leaves scars and bruises, neglect is still abuse. Elder care patients who are neglected suffer when nursing home personnel fails to provide food (malnutrition), water (dehydration), adequate clothing, shelter, hygiene, medication as well as intentionally failing to meet the physical, emotional, and social needs of the patient.
Why is elder care patients neglected?
There are any number of reasons to being neglected – budget cuts to nursing homes which means that staffing is at minimum, hiring minimally paid staff with lack of empathy and skills, lack of oversight to staffing supervision, care staff ignores the needs of elder care patients to instead watch TV/play computer games/and talk/text on the phone.
Nursing homes are supposed to be highly regulated but who is doing the regulating and how often? Standards considered acceptable by the industry are considered minimal by society and the sons and daughters whose elder care patients in nursing homes. Nursing home violations have occurred in 90 percent of facilities. Fines are not usually a deterrent.
Bedsores are a sign of elder care neglect. Bedsores are avoidable. Patients need to be repositioned regularly; when this doesn’t happen – it’s a sign of neglect.
For elder care patients who cannot feed themselves; are they being fed? Are patients being fed through a feeding tube? Does the feeding tube work? Are patients drinking adequate water? Are adult diapers changed in a timely manner or is the elder care patient lying in her/his own waste for hours on end?
Wandering is a sign of neglect. Cognitively impaired patients may wander outside, up and down stairwells, and into rooms which are off limits to patients. Neglect is when a nursing home fails to hire enough staff to properly supervise residents; fails to use alarms and other devices that prevent wandering; and when staff fails to respond to alarms to check the whereabouts of patients.
One elderly patient froze to death when she wandered up to the roof even though a door alarm gave off a signal which the staff member on duty promptly shut off then went back to watching TV and didn’t bother investigating. Equipment is only as good as the follow up.
Walk into most nursing homes and disoriented patients are lined up in their wheel chairs with nothing to do but vacantly stare ahead. Is this a form of neglect? It could be. Do they exist like this for hours on end or an hour day? Does the staff provide appropriate mental and social enrichment or is the wheel chair brigade in the hall 24/7?
Nobody likes to be neglected but in the nursing home scenario, patients don’t have a choice and they cannot often speak up about their neglect. You are the one who must do it for them by consulting an elder care abuse lawyer.
Reporting Abuse
If you are unsure where to report a case of elder abuse, you can contact an attorney specializing in elder law who can help you with the reporting.
Medicare Eligibility for Nursing Home Care
Medicare will cover nursing home care only if the patient receiving the care needs skilled nursing.
Nursing Home Abuse
Abuse can be physical, emotional, financial and sexual. More ...