Senior living communities include a wide range of facilities, from independent living apartments with very little hands-on assistance to nursing homes that offer 24/7 medical care and living assistance. Unfortunately, some residents of Indiana’s senior living facilities face neglect. Family members can bring justice to these mistreated seniors by staying alert for signs of abuse.
Sexually transmitted diseases
Vectors of disease don’t get around on their own. Sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV, hepatitis and genital herpes require physical contact to spread. Before entering senior living facilities, administrators typically subject seniors to tests that detect tuberculosis and other serious diseases. If seniors didn’t have a blood-borne disease before entering a nursing home, they caught the disease while lodging at the senior living facility.
It’s not possible to determine the ultimate cause of a disease without a formal investigation. However, learning that a loved one caught a disease while living at a nursing home should always be a cause for concern.
Trusting a caregiver with financial responsibility
Elder abuse doesn’t always mean physical or verbal mistreatment. It can also take the form of financial exploitation. Due to the power imbalance between caregivers and nursing home residents, seniors may feel forced to hand over their finances to caregivers. Although someone should have access to a senior’s personal finances, that person should not be a caregiver.
An inability to visit your loved one
From time to time, nursing homes take safety precautions by barring any outside visitors from entering for a short time. However, this should never be the norm at any nursing home. If administrators have refused access to your loved one more than once over the course of several weeks, it could be a sign of elder abuse.
A nursing home director’s apology is not enough to make up for elderly neglect. With the help of an attorney, bringing litigation against nursing homes or their employees may help hold them accountable for nursing home abuse.
