Nursing Home Neglect and Abuse – Tips to Help You Avoid Bad Nursing Homes and Detect Potential Problems

Searching for a nursing home that meets our loved one’s needs is a subject that is often avoided. More often than not, it can become a tedious decision, weighing the options of affordability against wanting the best of the best for your spouses or parents.

In small rural areas, the options for nursing homes or assisted living facilities may be very limited; versus a larger area, where you may have so many options that you become quickly overwhelmed. Prior to making a decision regarding a nursing home, it is a good idea to asses not only the positive aspects that you require (activities, cleanliness, visiting hours, etc.), but also the red flags that may alert you to potential problems.

MSN recently came out with a list titled “5 traits of the worst nursing homes,” where the author went through various tips to help you see behind the facade that the nursing home representative may put forth. Five common traits among the worst nursing homes include:

1. A history of violations
2. A number of severe violations
3. High staff turnover
4. Lack of Independence for residents
5. Your personal uneasy gut feeling

While some of these tips may seem common sense on their face, the article includes the various websites you can visit to discover any violations the home may have been issued, in addition to seeing what kind of violations they were. By utilizing these websites, you may be able to eliminate some facilities that seemed to have it together but in reality are not a good fit for your family.

Overall, patient satisfaction is one of the major considerations that encompass a large part of this list. Nursing homes that have dependable and trustworthy staff will likely give those of you trying to find a nursing home that peace of mind that is hoped for. Knowing that your loved ones will be cared for when you walk out of the door is essential to a successful relationship between yourself and the facility.

Abuse can come in many different forms, including physical abuse, sexual abuse, psychological abuse, financial exploitation, gross neglect, and even resident to resident abuse. The bottom line is that nursing home abuse is a real thing, and while it is normal to want to believe that it will not happen to us or our loved ones, the statistics disfavor that theory.

According to the National Center on Elder Abuse, over 50% of nursing home staff admitted to mistreating older patients within the year of the study. In another study, 44% of nursing home residents said they had been abused and 95% said they had been neglected or had seen another resident neglected.

Trust your gut instincts when you are visiting these facilities, by making simple observations and checking behind the administrations veil, you may find information that will save yourself and your loved ones a lot of heartache.

If you or a loved one has been a victim of nursing home neglect or abuse, call an experienced personal injury attorney today for your free consultation. Elder abuse is never an easy subject to deal with, it is vital to speak with someone who will be sensitive to your needs from the very beginning and help you get the justice that you and your family deserve.