Nursing homes are meant to be places where professionals care for our older loved ones, who can no longer care for themselves. People are usually a bit uncomfortable with the idea of dropping their parent or grandparent off at a nursing home, but sometimes their needs are simply beyond our capabilities. We depend on nursing homes to step in and care for our family members. Unfortunately, nursing homes might betray our trust for our loved ones. There are cases of older nursing home patients being injured by inattentive or uncaring staff every year. If your parent or grandparent was the victim of abuse while in a nursing home, you should hold the nursing home accountable.
Nursing home abuse can be extremely serious. Nursing home patients tend to be much older and have numerous health issues. That is why they are placed in nursing homes to begin with. Even slight acts of abuse, like being late with medication, may have dire consequences for vulnerable patients. Nursing home abuse can lead to injuries like bedsores, bone fractures, malnutrition, and dehydration. You may need to seek out costly medical treatment for your loved one to recover from the abuse inflicted upon them at the nursing home.
You and your loved one should not have to pay for the mistakes of others. Abusive nursing homes must be held responsible for your parent or grandparent’s injuries. Our Indiana nursing home abuse and injury lawyers can help you hold an abusive nursing home liable for your damages. Schedule a free legal consultation with our team at Wruck Paupore. Call our offices at (219) 322-1166.
Nursing home abuse may take many different forms, and it can be difficult to detect when your loved one is abused. Some injuries may be physical and outwardly visible when you visit your loved one. Other injuries may be internal or even psychological, and they might not be immediately apparent when you visit the nursing home.
The following are some common injuries from nursing home abuse:
Injuries can be physical or emotional. Being abused in a nursing home can, of course, leave physical injuries on patients. However, it is important to remember the unique position of nursing home patients. While an ordinary person could get up and leave an abusive situation, nursing home patients are not so lucky. Many victims of nursing home abuse suffer psychological and emotional trauma from being trapped in a physically painful situation.
Stopping nursing home abuse requires identifying injuries and bringing them to the attention of the nursing home staff. If you see your loved one with new injuries, you should immediately question staff about how the injuries occurred. Sometimes, injuries are caused by normal accidents, not abuse. Other times, patients are being abused and harmed.
You can bring your loved one to a doctor of your choice and have their injuries checked out. A medical professional might be able to help you determine if the injuries were caused by abuse. If they were, you should call a lawyer to help you hold the nursing home liable and stop future harm. Our Indiana nursing home abuse and injury lawyers are here to help.
After discovering signs of abuse, you should take your loved one to get checked out by a doctor not affiliated with your nursing home. Not only does your loved one need medical attention, but a neutral doctor can help figure out how the injuries occurred. Many nursing home patients find it difficult to communicate due to health complications associated with age. In these cases, they are incapable of telling you how they were injured. You need a doctor to help you fill in the blanks.
Depending on how your loved one is injured, you might need to call law enforcement. Acts of abuse, especially in a nursing home, may also be considered criminal acts of abuse. If your loved one suffered extremely serious injuries, the police might need to be called, and nursing home staff might be arrested.
You also need to contact an attorney. The nursing home you trusted to take care of your parents or grandparents not only failed to do so but betrayed your trust and injured your loved one. The emotional toll this takes can be enormous. Not only that, but your loved one may require expensive medical treatment. Our Indiana nursing home abuse and injury attorneys can help you gather records and evidence and file a lawsuit to claim compensation for your loved one’s injuries and damages.
Filing a lawsuit for nursing home abuse requires proof of abuse. While we all might have an idea of what abuse looks like, four legal elements must be fulfilled to prove abuse in court.
First, we need to prove that the nursing home owed your loved one a legal duty of care. Considering it is the very job of a nursing home to care for their patients, this duty or legal obligation should not be too difficult to prove. However, the nursing home may attempt to argue that they were not fully aware of your loved one’s needs or the extent of those needs. We will need to show that the nursing home knew what kind of care your loved one required to establish the legal duty.
Second, we need to prove that the nursing home breached or violated its legal duty to care for its patient. This breach could be a single act that caused injuries or repeat actions that caused injuries over time. The third element we must prove is causation, which serves as the link between the breach of duty and your loved one’s injuries. Proving causation means showing that the abuse was the direct cause of the injuries, not some other factor.
Finally, we need to show your loved one suffered actual damages. This can be achieved by using medical records to prove physical injuries and even information from a psychiatrist or therapist to prove emotional suffering. For help proving your case and recovering damages, call our Indiana nursing home abuse and injury attorneys.
If your loved one was injured in a nursing home because of an abusive nursing home staff, you could hold the nursing home liable by filing a lawsuit. Call our Indiana nursing home abuse and injury lawyers at Wruck Paupore today. Our phone number is (219) 322-1166.
Don is a founding partner and one of the nation’s top-ranked personal injury litigators. He is a member of the Multi-million Dollar Advocates Forum, which includes less than 1% of the nation’s trial lawyers, and awarded the highest ranking given by Martindale Hubbel and AVVO.
More importantly, Don understands representing personal injury victims is about more than recovering the best settlement: it’s about helping clients get back on their feet and supporting them in every aspect of their recovery.
In nearly all cases, our clients seek compensation from the wrongdoer’s insurance company. Before forming Wruck Paupore, Jason worked for a prominent law firm representing some of the world’s largest insurers. This experience gives Jason a deep understanding of the insurance industry and the strategies it uses to pay injury victims as little as possible.
Jason -- and our entire team -- put this inside knowledge to work to force insurance companies to pay what is actually owed. Often, we use the insurance company’s own tactics against them as we fight for the full compensation our client deserves.
For more than four decades, Keith has been fighting for injury victims. During that time, he’s watched the insurance industry change, with insurers now more interested in protecting their stock price than treating injury victims fairly.
Since the beginning, Keith has put people first. From his childhood in Gary, Indiana during the 1960’s and working his way through law school, Keith has risen to become one of the Midwest’s most respected trial lawyers. He has never forgotten that being a lawyer is about helping people -- and seeing injury victims through struggles in a way that could change their lives forever.
Over the decades, Keith, Don and Jason have fought relentlessly for clients, even when other lawyers have said the case was impossible to win.
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