Why is Neglect Different from Abuse?

When you decide to enter an elderly loved one into a nursing facility, you might be worried about abuse, and that’s fair. Oftentimes when families are choosing the services of a nursing home, they do so with the belief that the facility and the staff are going to provide the highest standard of care and compassion. However, nursing home abuse is too frequent for that to be true.

Even though there are now federal and state laws that are enacted to protect nursing home occupants, nursing home abuse and neglect still occur. But what exactly is nursing home abuse and neglect? To the average person, it might seem like abuse and neglect are interchangeable. The law however makes extremely distinctive distinctions between the two.

If you’re having issues understanding how the law distinguishes between nursing home abuse and nursing home neglect, reach out toward nursing home lawyers such as the ones available at Brusca & Davis LLC, and ask your questions to them.

Nursing Home Abuse

Nursing home abuse is the intentional infliction of injury, unreasonable confinement, intimidation, deprivation of services or care, or punishment that results in physical harm, pain or mental anguish. Unlike nursing home, neglect of abuse is intentional.

Some common examples of nursing home abuse include verbal abuse, sexual abuse, financial abuse, corporal punishment, shaking, or threatening of the resident. These acts may be performed by people that the resident should be able to trust for their care, or by family members or other visitors to the facility.

Nursing Home Neglect

Nursing home neglect, on the other hand, is a failure which can be unintentional or intentional, to provide a person with care and services that is necessary to restrict freedom from harm or pain. This can also be considered the failure to react to a potentially dangerous situation that may result in the resident being harmed or having anxiety.

While nursing on neglect may take many forms, the most common types of nursing home neglect or the failure to provide proper food, hygiene, or water. There are also often seen cases with failure to provide the necessary treatment or prevention of an illness or injury. Oftentimes this is not considered being done intentionally, it could be due to many many things such as shortages with money or being short staffed.

If you suspect that your loved one has been abused and neglected by the nursing home, you should first see if you can gather any evidence to support your claim, and then take the evidence to a nursing home lawyer. The nursing home lawyer is going to the federal and state regulations and they will be able to help you decide if there is a case to move forward with. Working alongside a lawyer will ensure that you are going to be able to take care of your loved ones case without worry, and follow the laws wall attending to the case.