Abuse By Staff
When elderly people move into a nursing home, they are rarely thrilled about the change. The process of moving into a nursing home comes with accepting a lessened amount of responsibility and agency over your life and deciding to trust the people who run the nursing home.
When a nursing home abuses that trust and acts either negligently or maliciously, then it can affect the physical, mental, emotional, and even financial health of the elderly living in the nursing home. If you or a loved one was a victim of nursing home abuse, then you may have a case for compensation. Our Bowie nursing home abuse attorney is ready to fight for you.
Call Now to Discuss Your Prince George’s County Nursing Home Abuse Case
Call Brown & Barron anytime for a free consultation where you can discuss your case and options with a team member. They will determine your best course of action. There are no risks or obligations.
Get in touch with an abuse by nursing home staff lawyer serving Bowie, (410) 547-0202 for a free case evaluation.
The Lawyers at Brown & Barron Are Here to Help
We’re a Maryland law firm dedicated to helping the elderly abused by nursing home staff. The elderly, especially those in nursing homes, are among our most vulnerable populations.
They’re often in nursing homes because they cannot perform basic tasks themselves, and when they’re abused by the people they rely on to help them live, they can feel like they have no options.
What Sets Our Services Apart?
As a firm, we specialize in nursing home abuse law and related cases. Apart from specialization, we also bring a combined 145 years of trial lawyer experience among our nine attorneys. Ourtrack recordis also exceptional, as we were able to recover more than 169 million dollars for our clients in just five years.
How Does Maryland Define Elder Abuse?
The Maryland government defines six types of elder abuse. Remember that if you have a loved one who was an elder abuse victim, then it’s possible they were a victim of more than one of the following types. Though it doesn’t always happen, these forms of abuse typically occur simultaneously.
Physical Abuse
This usually refers to when staff physically strike patients. This could also include the improper use of medication, either inadvertently giving the wrong dose or specific medication or intentionally giving certain medications that could sedate or harm a resident.
Financial Abuse/Exploitation
This can range from stealing money out of the pockets of the elderly to charging them excessive fees or increasing the prices of an already agreed-upon contract.
Some elders in nursing homes don’t have the ability or cognizance to understand they’re being charged more or stolen from, and if a nursing home knowingly preys on that, that would be financial abuse.
Psychological Abuse
This usually refers to verbal abuse, such as name-calling, yelling, or demeaning statements. It could also relate to the conditions that elders are kept in. Suppose they’re kept isolated from their peers at the nursing home or from ways they communicate with family members and friends outside of the nursing home. That can cause detrimental psychological effects.
Sexual Abuse
This is non-consensual sexual contact of any kind, which can occur in nursing homes when elders have conditions such as dementia, are unaware of their surroundings, and are therefore unable to consent.
Neglect
This refers to when caregivers do not meet the needs of those they are taking care of either because of indifference or other reasons. Often, neglect isn’t necessarily the fault of the nursing home staff, as factors like understaffing and overworking the team can lead to negligence.
In those cases, it’s the nursing home’s responsibility to ensure their facility is adequately staffed, and their caregivers have the proper training and facilities to perform their jobs well.
Self-Neglect
Self-neglect is a byproduct of neglect. Many residents of nursing homes are there because they can’t perform simple everyday tasks that are necessary to take care of themselves.
The nursing home staff is meant to help them perform these tasks, but if they’re being neglected, that could lead to them neglecting their own needs.
Contact Brown & Barron online today to schedule a free case review with an abuse by nursing home staff lawyer serving Bowie.
How Common Is Each Type of Abuse?
The National Center on Elder Abuse (NCEA) recognizes all the previously listed forms of abuse (except for self-neglect) as forms of elder abuse. According to the NCEA, “abuse in institutions,” referring to institutions like nursing homes, statistics of self-reported abuse found that each of these abuse forms is prevalent.
The most common form of abuse, according to these studies, was psychological, with 33.4% of elders in institutions having reported it, with the least common being sexual abuse at 1.9%. Physical abuse was reported by 14.1% of nursing home residents, financial by 13.8%, and neglect by 11.6%.
The NCEA estimates that there are far more cases of elder abuse than reported, and this problem is becoming more prevalent as the elderly population grows and more people move into nursing homes.
How We Could Help You Recover Damages for Nursing Home Abuse in Bowie
Many times, through out-of-court settlements, our attorneys can recover damages for our clients that help them pay for any costs they’ve incurred from nursing home abuse and in some cases, psychological trauma and pain and suffering. The amount you might receive will likely depend on the severity of the abuse and how much the related costs are.
For example, if physical abuse from nursing home staff caused you or a loved one physical pain that required medical attention, we could recover damages to help cover medical care as well as the pain from the injury.
A Bowie nursing home abuse attorney is here to help.