Signs of Nursing Home Neglect

Detecting nursing home mistreatment sometimes means that you need to look for the signs of neglect.

Not all nursing home abuse constitutes an employee of the facility seeking to physically harm a patient. In some cases, neglect in nursing homes causes problems that are just as great, and sometimes greater, than the problems that come with outright abuse.

The most-common signs.

When a patient in a nursing home is being neglected, one of the most common signs is that they will exhibit poor hygiene and the symptoms that come along with not getting out of bed often enough. For example, they may have a bad odor about them, dirty hair, unkempt nails and other signs of not being cared for enough when they can no longer do it themselves. Nursing home neglect also causes patients to have problems maintaining weight and, in some cases, they may drop quite a bit of weight in a short amount of time.
Nursing home neglect oftentimes causes psychological symptoms, as well. The symptoms are usually related to depression, as the patient will feel isolated and, provided that they are still cognitively able to understand their situation, they may feel a bit ashamed of not being able to take care of themselves the way they used to, particularly if nobody else is helping them do it.
Medications and treatments that are no longer working as they did before are other signs that there may be neglect going on. Many patients in nursing homes require almost constant monitoring to make certain that they are in good physical health. If you see the signs of your loved one not receiving the treatment that they need, you may want to consider speaking with their physician to see if the physician can schedule an appointment to see if something seems wrong.
One of your options in these situations, provided that the abuse and neglect have stopped, is to contact a lawyer to see if you can file a lawsuit to seek compensation. In some cases, an attorney will be able to help you file a successful lawsuit that could win you compensation for the neglect that your loved one has suffered and for the medical expenses and other expenses that have been incurred because of it. Speaking to an attorney is the first step in determining whether or not you have this option.