Daytona Beach Nursing Home Abuse Lawyers

Nursing home abuse refers to any type of physical, emotional, or financial harm that happens to elderly residents of long-term care facilities. Families put their trust in these facilities to watch over their loved ones when they can no longer do it themselves. Yet these homes sometimes do not provide the environments that families expect.

Cases of nursing home abuse have made headlines in recent years, with reports of beatings, neglect, and financial swindling. Many incidents stem from nursing home staff or other residents, but some are the result of large corporations that sacrifice proper training and quality of amenities to make a profit.

• Burnout
• Greed
• Lack of Supervision
• Understaffing
• Corporate Decisions

The signs of nursing home abuse are as varied as the forms it can take. Nursing home abuse can be physical, emotional, or financial, with each showing different signs in the behavior of your family member.

Bruises, cuts, broken bones, pressure marks from grabs, flinching or cowering in the presence of certain staff.

Medical needs going unattended, wrong prescriptions, unclean bedding, dirty clothes, unusual weight loss.

Unexplained withdrawals from your relative’s bank account, checks that bounce, keeping secrets, a sudden change to their will or estate.

If your case goes to court, you must prove to the jury that your relative in the nursing home suffered harm.

Often, injuries caused by staff members will be easier to prove because injuries result in medical treatment, which leads to a paper trail. Even in instances of abuse where documentation is not done, that lack of records can also serve as evidence. Emotional abuse can be trickier to document, and the evidence used to support a claim of emotional abuse can be as varied as the individual causes. Emotional abuse also leaves no physical evidence like bruises and cuts, making any claim heavily reliant on documentation.

Documentation that may prove useful includes diaries or journals kept by the resident or their family, photographs of injuries (both immediately after they happen and when they have healed), notes of conversations with staff kept on paper or electronically, and photos of prescriptions given to residents showing that they were being given medicines they were not supposed to receive.

Nobody wants to think about their relative being on the receiving end of mistreatment in their care facility. We want to give these facilities the benefit of the doubt and assume they are treating our loved ones with respect and care. When abuse happens, it is vital to hold those responsible to account. The best way to do that is with experienced legal help.

At The Eberst Law Firm, we have the legal knowledge to handle nursing home abuse cases with tact and sensitivity as we gather evidence to prove the abuse and take it to court. Our Daytona Beach team can help you and your family attain peace of mind.