Brent Adams & Associates Blog

Is Your Nursing Home Staff Responsible Or Negligent?

Many think that nursing home abuse or neglect is clear-cut acts by staff and nurses - physical hitting, improper use of restraints, or verbal attacks. However, nursing home neglect can be a more passive but still very dangerous form of abuse.

While there are some instances of outright abuse at nursing homes in North Carolina, the majority of improper elder care cases have to do with simple, sometimes subtle neglect: a man suffers from bedsores because he is not moved often enough by attendants. A woman is plagued by urinary tract infections because her health is not checked thoroughly enough. A man is left unattended for hours at a time, lowering his quality of life and increasing the chances that he will have a medical emergency without anyone to help him.

Just last month, a 74 year-old woman suffering from dementia and living in a High Point nursing home went missing from her nursing home on New Year's Day. When rescue works found her, she had almost died of hypothermia - unconscious at the bottom of a wooded embankment. Unlike more distinct cases of abuse, it is difficult to know whether this woman's near-death was the result of an under-supervised nursing home.

If you have questions about your own loved one and nursing home abuse and neglect, call us today for more information about your potential case.