Abuse in nursing homes in the United States
Elderly abuse in nursing homes is a growing concern affecting thousands of senior citizens in the United States. When we take our loved ones to a nursing home, we expect them to receive the utmost care and be treated with respect, kindness, and dignity. Unfortunately, as the longevity of life increases for Americans, so does the problem of elderly abuse, particularly in nursing homes.
More than three million senior adults are currently living in nursing homes and other long-term facilitates in the United States. A congressional report performed over a two-year period showed that one in every three nursing homes in the US reported occasions of abuse with the potential to inflict serious harm. According to WHO, between 2017 and 2018, one in every six nursing home residents reported having suffered some form of abuse. Unfortunately, because of the inability of most old patients to report abuse, five in every one reported cases go unreported and unsolved.
Elderly abuse can either be physical, emotional, sexual, and financial abuse.
Physical abuse is the most common form of abuse reported in nursing homes. This form of abuse can be identified through physical injuries such as bruises, cuts, and broken bones. Such injuries will often go unexplained, or the explanation given does not fit the injury suffered.
Psychological abuse may not be easy to identify and occurs when the staff member intentionally harms the self-esteem of the resident by yelling, isolating, criticizing, shaming, and lashing abusive words to the residents. Isolating a patient from their relatives and friends also inflicts emotional harm.
Financial abuse occurs when a staff member trusted with financial details of the residents steals money and property.
Sexual abuse involves unwanted sexual attention or exploitation. This often occurs to patients who cannot express their wishes, such as patients with dementia.
Elderly abuse can happen for a wide range of reasons. One reason is burnout, where staff members are overworked with long shifts and dealing with more patients than they can handle. In such situations, some staff may verbally or physically abuse the patients as a way of letting out their frustrations. Other staff members are simply greedy and end up swindling the life savings of their patients. Lack of close supervision may also render the staff lazy and inattentive to how they treat the residents.
Elderly abuse is slowly becoming an epidemic in the United States. The fact that very few nursing homes take responsibility for abuse may be the cause of the increasing cases. The best way to deter abuse by the government would be to hold the staff and administrators accountable for any incidents of abuse in their facilities.
