Nursing Home Neglect

Florida Nursing Home Neglect And Abuse – What Does It Mean?

Elderly Floridians suffer nursing home neglect and abuse far too often and in far too many ways. The problem isn’t limited to just the nursing home environment, either – abuse and neglect can also happen in nursing home alternatives like adult family-care homes, assisted living facilities, and continuing-care retirement communities.

We want to help if you or a family member has been the victim of nursing home neglect or abuse in South Florida, including Stuart, Okeechobee, Port St. Lucie, Palm Beach and Vero Beach. Simply call Philip DeBerard, Injury Attorney, today. Reach us toll-free at (888) 649-6092 or use our online form. We can provide you with a free and confidential case evaluation.

What Is Florida Nursing Home Neglect?

Simply put, nursing home neglect and abuse includes anything that endangers the safety, health, welfare, or individual rights of a long-term care facility resident. People living in any type of adult care setting deserve – and have the right to receive – safe, professional care and assistance, delivered with respect for their individual dignity.

The results of nursing home abuse and neglect can be devastating. Common signs of a neglected or abused resident include:

Bedsores

Also known as pressure sores or pressure ulcers, bedsores are wounds that result from prolonged pressure on the skin. Bedsores often occur in nursing home environments when elderly patients are unable to change their body position because they are confined to a wheelchair or bed.

Bedsores can be prevented by following a regular schedule for repositioning residents who can’t move on their own. Such residents also may need cushions or other devices that help relieve pressure and control their body position. Prevention is critical because bedsores, which are often quite painful, can take a very long time to heal, and they put the sufferer at risk of serious complications and even death.

Malnutrition

Malnutrition means lack of proper nutrition, and it results when nursing home residents don’t receive food that has the calories, carbohydrates, protein, and wide-ranging vitamins and minerals that everyone needs in order to enjoy good health. Malnutrition can happen when a nursing home fails to provide a variety of quality foods and well-balanced meals that residents will eat, or when staff don’t give assistance to residents who need help to eat.

Malnutrition can cause nursing home residents to suffer dangerous weight loss and make them more susceptible to diseases and injury.

Dehydration

Nursing home residents can become dehydrated when they aren’t given enough fluids to remain healthy. Above and beyond everyone’s normal need to remain properly hydrated, dehydration can pose particular problems for elderly nursing home residents. Residents’ medications and illnesses may put them at greater risk of dehydration, and they may be less able to tolerate dehydration than younger adults.

Problems from dehydration can include dangerous electrolyte imbalances and increased risk of urinary infections and other physical ailments.

Falls

Nursing home residents are at terrible risk when they suffer a fall. Government figures show that about 1,800 older adults living in nursing homes die every year from fall-related injuries. Among those who survive, falls often result in dangerous hip fractures and head injuries that lead to permanent disabilities. Hundreds of falls happen each year in nursing homes, with residents suffering more falls than other elderly adults and often falling more than once.

The vast majority of those falls are preventable, and nursing home negligence is to blame when falls result from a nursing home’s failure to maintain a safe facility with proper equipment, or its failure to have sufficient, properly-trained staff.

Medication Errors

Medications play a crucial role in the health and well-being of many nursing home residents. That means it’s equally crucial that residents be provided the correct medications, in the correct amounts, and at the correct times. Nursing homes must provide sufficient, properly-trained staff who verify that each patient receives the patient’s own medication as prescribed; monitor for adverse drug interactions; and monitor for adverse drug side effects. In many cases, failure to do so is nursing home negligence that can result in grave harm to residents.

What Is Florida Nursing Home Abuse?

Nursing home residents are a vulnerable population who depend on others to help them meet their daily care and other needs. As such, they can easily become tragic victims of abuse.

Every nursing home has a duty to ensure that its residents remain personally safe and never suffer abuse at the hands of staff or others who may come and go from the facility’s grounds. Unfortunately, though, not all nursing homes meet that duty. Whether from lack of adequate hiring procedures and training, improper facility and staff supervision, or due to insufficient funding issues that lead to cutting corners, nursing home abuse remains a distressing problem.

That abuse can take many forms. Physical abuse can range from improper use of restraints to assaults and even sexual attacks. Emotional abuse can include threats, humiliation, disrespectful behavior, and even isolation of the resident from important social interaction.

Residents may fail to report abuse because they’ve been threatened with retaliation and feel at the mercy of the nursing home staff, or they may share the embarrassment so often experienced by assault victims.

Florida Nursing Home Neglect And Abuse Require Prompt Action

Anyone suffering nursing home neglect or abuse needs help, and they need it right away. If that’s you, then you know the pain and suffering has to be stopped. If you think a loved one is a nursing home neglect or abuse victim, we offer information about when to suspect a problem.

Contact Our Nursing Home Abuse Attorneys Today If You Suspect Florida Nursing Home Neglect or Abuse

No Florida nursing home resident should ever suffer neglect or abuse because of maltreatment or a nursing home’s negligence. If you’re suffering nursing home neglect or abuse now, or you think a loved one is in that dire situation, contact Philip DeBerard, Injury Attorney, today.

From Stuart, Okeechobee, Port St. Lucie, Palm Beach, Vero Beach, or anywhere in South Florida, you can reach us at (888) 649-6092, or use our online form. We always offer a free consultation to discuss your case. Call us today so we can begin helping with your Florida nursing home neglect or abuse claim.