Signs of Elderly Neglect

Elderly neglect occurs in nursing home environments for a variety of reasons. Sometimes the staff is overloaded with patients and, consequently, they simply don't have enough time to spend on each patient to give them proper healthcare. In other cases, the staff may not be well-trained enough to deal with difficult patients and may end up neglecting those patients who present particularly tough challenges for a staff who doesn't know how to address them properly.

Neglect in nursing homes can result in situations where elderly people suffer physical and psychological consequences. Physically, conditions that aren’t being treated as directed by their physician may worsen in their health may rapidly deteriorate. Psychologically, feelings of depression and isolation are common in individuals who don't get enough time to socialize with the other patients at the nursing home or even with the staff.

In some cases, the signs of elderly neglect are very similar to what you would expect to see in any other individual who is being deprived of social interaction and proper care. They may start to lose weight, lose the motivation to participate in social activities and may exhibit more and more withdrawn behavior. They may also act paranoid, simply because the staff isn’t showing them a great deal of attention and because, after a while, it may seem like the staff is deliberately out to get them to cause them harm by omission of care.

If you believe that neglect is playing a role in the deteriorating health of a loved one who is in nursing home, you may want to consider consulting with their physician. In many cases, the physician will be the first one to notice that their conditions aren't improving as they should, or at least aren’t remaining stable as the physician would have reason to expect given the treatments that were being ordered. Of course, when the treatments aren’t being given, they are of no use at all.

Contacting an attorney to file a lawsuit over nursing home neglect may present a way for you to recover the losses that your loved one has suffered and to receive compensation for having suffered the negligence of the facility itself. It's sometimes hard to put a price tag on pain and suffering, but an attorney can help you do so by looking at cases that have succeeded in the past and at your own particular situation.

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