Articles Tagged with California nursing home abuse lawyer

When you are searching in Orange County or elsewhere in Southern California for a nursing home where your elderly loved one can obtain the level of care they need, it is essential to do as much research as possible and to choose a facility that can provide what your family member needs. There are many different types of facilities in terms of quality and size, and there are also for-profit and non-profit facilities. According to a recent report from CBS News, many for-profit nursing homes in California are not serving residents well, and it is important for families to understand the distinctions between for-profit and non-profit facilities.

Nursing Home Abuse and Negligence Can Happen Anywhere

Before we discuss the important distinctions between for-profit and non-profit nursing homes, and the research surrounding those distinctions, we want to emphasize that nursing home abuse and negligence can happen anywhere. Even seemingly high quality facilities can have issues, and nursing homes with no past records of safety problems can be places where injuries occur. 

Does the language spoken by a caregiver at a nursing home or assisted-living facility in Riverside County have an effect on the quality of care a resident receives? Do nursing homes and assisted-living facilities need to have caregivers on staff who speak the same language as the residents and who are familiar with the linguistic and cultural contexts from which residents have come to the nursing home or assisted-living facility? A recent report from McKnights Senior Living discusses initiatives to overcome language barriers for certified nursing assistants (CNAs) in California and in several other states across the country. Our Riverside County nursing home negligence lawyers can tell you more.

Language Barriers for Caregivers and Residents in Southern California Nursing Homes and Assisted Living Facilities

According to the article, there are currently significant language barriers impacting the ability of potential nursing home and assisted living facility employees to become CNAs due to language barriers. Indeed, “foreign-born workers account for 27% of the nation’s direct care workforce, but many states maintain strict, English-only testing and training requirements that can prevent some immigrants from entering the workforce.” Given that there is a significant need for more long-term care workers, efforts are underway in California and other states to make it possible for workers to pass CNA certification exams in foreign languages. In California, AB 2131 aims to allow workers to take the written and oral competency portions of the CNA exam in Spanish. 

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 

Older adults who reside in nursing homes or assisted-living facilities in Riverside County or elsewhere in Southern California should be able to expect that the facility where they live has taken sufficient safety precautions to prevent resident injuries. However, nursing homes throughout the state, and indeed across the country, often have safety issues that can result in resident injuries. Depending on the particular hazard, injuries can range from minor to severe. In many of these cases where an injury does occur, it may be possible to hold the nursing home accountable by filing a nursing home neglect claim. Our Riverside County nursing home abuse and neglect attorneys can assist you, and in the meantime, we can tell you more about common safety issues in Southern California nursing homes.

Fall Concerns

Nursing homes have a duty to ensure that their facilities are safe and do not prevent fall hazards, including those that could result in dangerous slips and falls or trips and falls. Common fall hazards, according to the AHRQ, include a lack of grip bars in bathrooms, slick flooring, torn or damaged carpeting, lack of handrails in stairwells, and liquid spills that go uncleaned.

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

Nursing home abuse occurs frequently, but it can still be difficult to spot or identify if you do not know what to look for. Quite often, friends and family members of older adults in nursing homes are in the best position to spot injuries that may have resulted from abuse or neglect, so it is critical to know what you should be observing and reporting. Our Orange County nursing home abuse and neglect attorneys have tips. The following are the top ways to spot nursing home abuse in Orange County.

Learn About Different Forms of Abuse and Neglect

Nursing home abuse and neglect can take many different forms, so it is critical to understand the types of abuse that can occur. Those forms of abuse typically include physical abuse, emotional or psychological abuse, sexual abuse, willful deprivation, and passive neglect.

Summertime brings even hotter temperatures to Southern California than the Los Angeles County region experiences in other parts of the year, and seniors in nursing homes and assisted-living facilities can suffer harm if these facilities do not take additional precautions. Moreover, the summer months do not have any reduced likelihood of common nursing home abuse and neglect injuries that are unrelated to higher temperatures, and it is important to be on the lookout for those harms, as well. As recent research reported in Science News highlights, rising temperatures can also make people more aggressive, which might result in shorter fuses for nursing home employees who are providing care for residents and patients. Indeed, humans have difficulty “coping with extreme heat,” and during heat waves, in particular, employees could be more likely to behave aggressively.

What do you need to know if you have an elderly loved one in a nursing home or assisted-living facility in Southern California? Our Los Angeles County nursing home neglect lawyers have some key things to keep in mind.

Hot Temperatures Can Result in Distinct Injuries Due to Neglect

Since nursing home abuse and neglect in Riverside County can take many forms, it can be challenging to know whether or not a specific sign is likely to indicate nursing home abuse. It is imperative to keep in mind that any sign or symptom that raises concern should be investigated. Given that even small changes in a senior’s behavior can indicate a much larger problem, it is critical to take any concerns seriously. At the same time, some signs and symptoms of nursing home abuse and neglect are more common than others, so you should be particularly attuned to certain indicators. The following are ten of the most common signs of elder abuse in nursing homes and assisted living facilities in Southern California.

1. Unexplained Bruises and Other Soft Tissue Injuries

Anytime a senior has unexplained bruises, cuts, burn marks, or any other related injuries, they should be taken extremely seriously. They are often a sign of physical abuse.

When we think about characteristics that make people particularly vulnerable to nursing home abuse or neglect in San Bernardino County, we often think about age, socioeconomic factors, community relationships, and a nursing home resident’s relative health. It is important to know that older adults are subject to abuse and neglect in ways other patients may not. Nursing home residents who cannot afford certain types of care or do not have family members or trustworthy loved ones in their community to consider their best interests can suffer injuries due to nursing home abuse or neglect — sometimes at higher rates than others. The Alzheimer’s Association also underscores that nursing home residents with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia are especially vulnerable to abuse, often because they do not have the cognitive abilities to recognize abuse or to report it.

What about gender and sex? And, in particular, are women at higher risk of certain types of abuse in nursing home settings? Our San Bernardino nursing home abuse attorneys want to say more about gender-based violence and elder abuse in Southern California.

Women Residents of Nursing Homes Are More Likely to Be Victims of Sexual Abuse

Older adults, including nursing home and assisted-living facility residents in Riverside County, may be more likely to suffer serious fall injuries than younger people. Yet it is important to remember that falls are preventable, and nursing homes have a duty to take steps to ensure resident safety. If a fall does occur in a Riverside County nursing home or assisted-living facility, it is important to seek advice from a Riverside County nursing home negligence lawyer who can determine whether the facility may be liable. In the meantime, the following are five things you should know about falls and nursing homes.

1. Falls are Extremely Common But Preventable Among Older Adults

Falls occur much more frequently than you might think among older adults. Indeed, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there were 36,000 fall-related deaths among adults aged 65 and up in 2020, which makes falls the “leading cause of injury death for that group.” Around 3 million older adults experience injuries in falls that require treatment in an emergency department, and approximately 800,000 require hospitalization. Among older adults, about 20% of all falls result in serious injury.

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