Nursing Home Abuse and Nursing Home Neglect Informational Resource
Nursing Home Abuse
Nursing Home Abuse is caused when someone or something causes intentional pain or harm. This type of abuse includes physical abuse, psychological abuse, sexual abuse and punishment. Below are some of the common signs of Nursing Home Abuse:
- Physical Abuse - can be caused by a staff member, intruder or visitor from outside the Nursing Home. Common abuse may include: hitting, pinching, shoving, force-feeding, scratching, slapping, spitting and more specifically, assault and/or battery.
- Psychological Abuse - can be caused by a staff member, intruder or visitor from outside the Nursing Home. Common abuse may include: scolding, ignoring, making fun of, or cursing a resident and other verbal abuse. Threats of punishment or denial of necessities are also a common form of Psychological Abuse.
- Sexual Abuse - can be caused by a staff member, intruder or visitor from outside the Nursing Home. Common abuse may include: touching, coercion to perform sexual acts or worse yet, sexual assault, sexual battery or rape.
- Punishment - Punishment will be exclusively caused by a staff member of the Nursing Home. Common abuse may include: unreasonable physical restraint, prolonged or continual deprivation of food or water and sometimes use of a physical or chemical restraint or psychotropic medication for any purpose not consistent with that authorized by the physician.
