If you suspect that your loved one has been sexually assaulted in a nursing home or assisted living facility, trust that instinct. Families often notice subtle changes first. A once-engaged parent becomes withdrawn. There are unexplained injuries, fear around certain staff members, or sudden emotional distress. These are not things to ignore.
Sexual assault in a care facility is one of the most serious forms of elder abuse. It is also one of the most underreported.
If you have ever walked into a nursing home and felt that something was off, call lights ringing, residents waiting too long for help, staff moving at a sprint, you already understand the core issue. Safe nursing home care depends on having enough trained people on the floor, for enough hours, every day.
That is why minimum nursing hours are imperative. They are not a luxury, and they are not a paperwork exercise. They are the basic guardrails that prevent predictable harm.
Recently, a coalition of Attorneys General from across the country sent a formal letter to federal leadership urging strong, quantitative staffing requirements for skilled nursing facilities. The letter is signed by many state Attorneys General, including California Attorney General Rob Bonta, and leaders from New York, Massachusetts, Arizona, Colorado, and many others.
Do you have an elderly loved one in a nursing home in San Bernardino County or elsewhere in California? If so, it is critical that you learn more about identifying signs of nursing home abuse and neglect, and that you learn about your options for reporting it. Much too often, when a visitor at a nursing home or assisted-living facility suspects abuse or neglect, they do not know who they should alert to their concerns or what steps to take in order to have their concerns addressed. Many people also worry that they will report their concerns when there is insufficient evidence, or when they are not completely certain that neglect or abuse has occurred.
If you have any concerns at all about nursing home abuse or neglect — including abuse or neglect in an assisted-living facility or another type of residential care facility for the elderly (RCFE) in Southern California — it is important to report it. You might just save your own loved one from further harm, as well as other residents at the facility. How do you make a report? There are different options you can consider.
Identify and Record Abuse and Neglect Concerns
Memory care facilities, like other assisted living facilities, are supposed to provide quality care to the residents who reside in these places. Yet, much too often, elderly residents of memory care facilities who suffer from Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia sustain injuries and other forms of harm due to abuse and neglect. What do you need to know about abuse and neglect at Southern California memory care facilities? Consider the following information from our San Bernardino County nursing home neglect lawyer.
What is Dementia and Why Do Seniors Require Memory Care Assistance?
Why do seniors need to live in memory care facilities? In general, memory care facilities are intended for older adults with forms of dementia.
Any family assessing nursing homes in San Bernardino County for an elderly loved one should be thinking about safety ratings and histories of abuse or safety violations at the facility. These numbers certainly do not tell the entire story and any nursing home — even one with a spotless record — can be a place where elder abuse occurs, or nursing home negligence results in an accidental injury or death. However, ratings and reports can provide a portion of information that should be taken seriously. At the same time, a study reported in McKnight’s Long-Term Care News suggests that there may be another factor to consider: whether the nursing home is unionized.
Nursing home employees who are unionized are more likely to report workplace injuries, according to the report, and that information is important for a key reason: workplace injuries often occur in healthcare facilities due to employee burnout. Accordingly, a lower rate of workplace injuries could suggest a lower risk of negligence-related injuries among elderly residents. Our San Bernardino County nursing home neglect lawyers can tell you more.
Unionization, Improved Staffing, and Less Burnout
In San Francisco and throughout the Bay Area, there are millions of older adults, many of whom reside in nursing homes or assisted living facilities. According to data from the California Health Benefits Review Program (CHBRP), adults aged 65 and up represent the “fastest growing age group” in California. In 2021, there were 6 million older adults living in the state, and that number has since increased. By 2030, the CHBRP estimates that the state’s population of adults aged 65 and up will total nearly 9 million, or 20 percent of California’s population. Is it possible to prevent nursing home abuse and neglect among this aging population?
While incidents of nursing home abuse and neglect can be based on factors specific to a facility, there are also risk factors associated with individuals. What are the general risk factors to consider in nursing home abuse or neglect cases? Our San Francisco nursing home neglect lawyers can discuss some of the most common risk factors with you.
Understanding Abuse and Neglect Risk Factors in Nursing Homes and Assisted Living Facilities
Anyone who has an elderly parent or relative who resides in a nursing home or assisted-living facility in San Bernardino County should know about the risks of nursing home abuse, neglect, and negligence. Generally speaking, older adults in nursing homes and assisted-living facilities can be at risk of injuries from various types of harm, both intentional and unintentional. Trying to understand the distinctions between abuse, neglect, and negligence in relation to seniors can be confusing, and our Southern California nursing home abuse and neglect lawyers can help to clarify the terms for you. If you have further questions or if you need assistance with a claim, do not hesitate to get in touch with us.
Intentional Elder Abuse
The term elder abuse often refers to acts of intentional abuse. The National Council on Aging (NCOA) underscores that there are many forms of intentional abuse that can result in severe harm to older adults in nursing homes and assisted-living facilities, including physical abuse, emotional or psychological abuse, sexual abuse, and willful deprivation.
Anyone with an elderly loved one in a San Bernardino nursing home or any long-term care facility in Southern California should be aware of elder abuse and neglect risks and should be able to recognize concerning signs in order to take action. Yet, being able to recognize potential signs of abuse becomes significantly more important when you have an elderly loved one with dementia in a nursing home. As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) explains, the term “dementia” does not refer to a specific, diagnosed disease, “but rather is a general term for the impaired ability to remember, think, or make decisions that interfere with doing everyday activities.” What do you need to know about recognizing nursing home abuse if you have an elderly parent or loved one with dementia? Our San Bernardino nursing home abuse attorneys can tell you more.
Understanding Dementia
In order to understand specific signs or symptoms of elder abuse in nursing home residents with dementia, it is essential to understand how older adults are affected by dementia and what it involves. The CDC explains that about five million people over the age of 65 had dementia in 2014, and that number has risen over the last decade. To be sure, as the aging population increases, the number of dementia patients is expected to surge and to nearly triple by the year 2060.
Long before social media platforms entered into wide and nearly constant use by people of all age groups in the US, nursing home abuse and neglect were serious problems in San Bernardino nursing homes and in facilities across the state. In other words, social media has not caused a rise in nursing home abuse or neglect in Southern California, but it has made new forms of emotional abuse possible that can have serious psychological repercussions for nursing home residents. A recent report from Insider discusses the prevalence of “social media mistreatment” affecting nursing home residents throughout the country.
What do you need to know about emotional abuse and its rise on social media? And what can you do for an elderly loved one who is being mistreated? Our San Bernardino nursing home abuse attorneys can tell you more.
Understanding Elder Emotional and Psychological Abuse
Nursing homes in San Bernardino County and throughout Southern California must comply with state and federal laws concerning resident care. Those laws require nursing homes to provide a particular level of care based on the resident’s needs, to comply with residents’ rights, and to ensure a certain level of safety at the facility. In recent years, questions and concerns about transparency in nursing homes have become particularly important as residents have experienced injuries due to nursing home abuse and neglect, have been transferred unlawfully to hospice facilities, and have been evicted for inexplicable reasons.
As of January 1, 2024, a new law is in effect that requires nursing homes to provide detailed information to residents upon eviction. Our San Bernardino County nursing home abuse and neglect lawyers can tell you more.
Risk of Forcible Discharge or Eviction at California Nursing Homes
California Nursing Home Abuse Lawyer Blog