Introduction

First, it is important to understand that nursing homes have had to rapidly expand in order to keep up with the increasing demands of seniors looking for homes. This expansion has forced many to hire workers that do not have adequate qualifications or experience. The lack of experience of nursing home staff is what leads to nursing home abuse.

Nursing Home Abuse

Nursing home abuse is the process of an employee of the home taking actions that are hurtful in some way to one of the seniors under his or her care and supervision. There are many different forms of nursing home abuse, and those forms are briefly detailed below.

Physical: This is perhaps the most common type of nursing home abuse, and it involves pushing, slapping, or hitting a senior citizen living in the home.

Emotional: This is abuse that causes the elder to react with very negative emotions. Sudden bursts of crying or intense anger are usually the effects of prolonged emotional nursing home abuse.

Psychological: Any type of mental abuse that does not bring forth the emotional response from the elder but rather causes him or her mental stress can be classified as psychological nursing home abuse.

Sexual: This is similar to all other forms of sexual abuse.

Causes of Nursing Home Abuse

There are a number of different possible causes for nursing home abuse but for the purposes of this article we will discuss the two that are now believed to be the leading causes of nursing home abuse. These two causes are the inexperience of staff members and the lack of qualifications of staff members.

Inexperience: Experience is a necessary part of any job, and it is especially valuable in a nursing home. Nursing home abuse is sometimes an unintentional result of a frustrated staff member that is not trained to handle an uncooperative senior citizen residing in the home. An inexperienced staff member might become frustrated and lash out unexpectedly at the senior he or she is caring for. This is what starts most cases of prolonged elder abuse in nursing homes.

Lack of Qualification: Once again, this is reasonably similar to the inexperience issue. If a person does not have the full qualifications in order to deal with seniors he or she might inadvertently abuse a senior because he or she does not have the proper training about appropriate methods to help him or her deal with an uncooperative senior.

Legalities

Regardless of what the cause of your specific case is, you always have the option of legal actions against your abuser. If you are considering taking legal action against the nursing home then the best thing you can do is to contact a lawyer. Your lawyer will give you advice about what options you have and what you should do next; your lawyer will also be able to ensure that the abuser is held accountable for his or her actions.s