Placing someone you love in an Indiana nursing home is often the last resort for a family unable to provide round-the-clock care for an aging parent.
Choosing a nursing home requires a great deal of confidence in the medical and nursing staff who will be looking after their well-being, and most families hope that a nursing facility will provide them with a decent quality of life.
They never expect to learn that their loved one has suffered nursing home abuse and neglect after admittance to a long term care facility.
The Indiana nursing home abuse lawyers at Nursing Home Law Center represent victims of mistreatment. Call us today at (800) 926-7565 to schedule a free consultation to discuss your compensation claim.
The sooner you can get legal advice, the quicker you can start trying to get justice for your loved one.
As the U.S. population ages, poor treatment of residents in nursing facilities continues to be a mostly hidden problem in our society. According to the National Center on Elder Abuse (NCEA), more than three million Americans reside in nursing homes, with nearly a million more in some assisted living facility.
Nearly one in three of these homes fails to meet federal standards for safety and quality of care. While the actual prevalence of nursing center abuse and neglect remains unknown, experts believe it to be quite pervasive.
The NCEA and the Centers for Disease Control have concluded that most lawsuits in nursing homes nationwide likely go unreported due to challenges in gathering accurate data and force deficiencies.
Do you suspect that someone you love is being abused or neglected in an Indianapolis nursing home?
If so, contact an experienced Indiana personal injury attorneys at Nursing Home Law Center to get help in investigating your concerns today.
Attorney Jeff Powless is licensed in the state and serves victims of negligence in nursing homes across the state. His main office is located at 9465 Counselors Row, Suite 200, Indianapolis, IN 46240. You can also contact us online.
The U.S. Congress enacted several laws designed to protect vulnerable elderly patients, which apply to all assisted living and long term care facilities in the United States.
In 1987, the U.S. Congress passed the Nursing Home Reform Act, establishing essential nursing home patients' basic standards of care that promote their physical, psychological, and social well-being and set forth fundamental rights. These include, among others, the right to:
The Long-Term Care Ombudsman program created a network of advocates for nursing home patients in each state who investigate and attempt to resolve specific complaints involving abuse, neglect, or exploitation of a resident.
The Adult Protective Services Act is the governing state law intended to protect nursing home residents' welfare. The law sets forth specific reporting procedures when residents in nursing homes are believed to be "endangered adult" victims of exploitation, abuse, or neglect.
The Act allows nursing home workers who have reason to believe a resident is endangered to submit a report to state authorities.
Family members and caregivers might also call a toll-free hotline to report any observed or suspected abuse, neglect, or exploitation incidents. Complaints of neglect should be made as soon as possible so that Adult Protective Services can protect the endangered victim.
An Indianapolis elder care abuse and neglect attorney can help you protect your loved one's safety and rights under the law. Speak with a nursing home abuse lawyer about possible courses of action today.
Each residential nursing facility is responsible for always providing every patient a professional level of long term care, and when the care deviates from that standard, it can result in numerous health hazards.
Due to the growing demand for medical health care in the state, the number of qualified nurses and nurses' aides available for hire is limited.
Consequently, many homes are forced to hire unskilled and untrained staff, which often places residents' welfare at risk. As a result, the patient's quality of life is often diminished, and their risk of developing severe health complications rises.
The following are some of the most common and preventable consequences of neglect in nursing homes nationwide, which can all lead to potentially life-threatening serious injury. Nursing home mistakes and negligent conduct have real consequences. Quite literally, they could kill your loved one.
Pressure sores. Physically disabled or immobile patients in nursing homes might be prone to developing pressure sores (also known as bed sores and pressure ulcers) in areas of the body where the patient's weight on a mattress or wheelchair goes unrelieved for an extended period.
If not treated promptly, these sores can rapidly progress to a painful open wound, predisposing the patient to bacteria that can infect vital organs. In some situations, the complications related to pressure sores may be fatal.
When a patient develops bedsores, it is usually because the nursing staff did not provide the proper care and attend to their needs.
Given that pressure sores are easily preventable with proper training, most personal injury cases can be traced to staff negligence. A comprehensive discussion of Indiana bed sore settlements and verdicts is here.
Elderly patients are at risk of sustaining severe injuries from falling because of the aging process, which might be aggravated by medical conditions affecting bone density, motor function, or balance.
Falls are the leading cause of death among patients over the age of 65. Residents of nursing homes are at greater risk for falls than are elderly persons living on their own.
Nursing care facilities need to ensure the risk of falls is not compounded by negligence and disregard for safety.
Lack of adequate supervision, environmental hazards such as wet floors, and failure to properly assist a patient getting in and out of a bed or wheelchair are common causes of severe falls in nursing homes.
Immobile patients who rely on staff members to help them move from place to place are most often dropped during routine transfers due to overworked or poorly trained staff not following safety protocol or using poor judgment.
Patients might sustain bone fractures, brain damage, and other internal injuries resulting from these falls. Our nursing home lawyers have found that these injuries can impair the victims' quality of life in their final years.
Medication errors. Patients are often placed on increasingly more medications as they age, raising their chances of experiencing an adverse drug interaction or being injured by medication errors because of staff negligence or inattention.
Their caregiver might administer medications at the wrong times or frequency, or their doctor might prescribe drugs without verifying their safety.
While the resulting injuries are usually not serious, some patients can suffer catastrophic harm simply because those responsible for their care failed to do their due diligence, leading to malnutrition, dehydration, and mistreatment. There should be a multi-layered system in place to prevent these errors.
Our nursing home injury lawyers examine the chain of responsibility to determine where things went wrong and which parties along the way failed to prevent the wrong medication or dose from being administered to the patient.
As much as we do not like to think about it, elderly nursing home residents are easy targets for all manner of abuse. They are dependent, vulnerable, and incapable of fighting back.
Their victimizers might be fellow residents, outside visitors, or even the very caregivers who are paid to look out for their welfare. Many victims remain silent out of shame or fear, so it is crucial to recognize the signs of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse to protect those you hold dear.
According to a 2010 national study reported by NCEA, more than half of nursing home staff surveyed admitted to having inflicted physical violence, mental mistreatment, or neglect on patients, with neglect accounting for two-thirds of those incidents.
The most common complaint of mistreatment in nursing homes involved physical abuse by staff, followed by resident-on-resident trauma and psychological abuse issues.
If your loved one is physically or sexually assaulted by an employee or another resident with a history of abusive behavior, the facility could be held liable for their actions.
The nursing home injury attorneys at Nursing Home Law Center LLC are committed to protecting your family's legal rights and holding facilities accountable.
We can help you recover damages for medical expenses or special care associated with the injury, pain caused by the serious injury, or wrongful death if a patient dies from related complications.
Contact our office for a free review of your case to advise you of your legal options.
Preventable death from infected pressure sores, unsupervised falls, or negligence occurs when the staff does not properly care for residents.
Many nursing home neglect victims are vulnerable individuals who are unable to complain to anyone about the improper healthcare they are receiving. In many cases, the patient suffers severe pain and discomfort before their demise.
No patient should ever die from a preventable injury. When negligence is involved, the family survivors must take legal action in a wrongful death lawsuit against the responsible facility. A successful lawsuit often results in a monetary award at trial or settlement out of court.
Do you believe your parent, grandparent, sibling, child, or spouse died from the negligent acts of nursing home staff? Contact the attorneys at the Nursing Home Law Center today for a free case review.
The signs of abuse and neglect are not always readily apparent.
While the severe lapses in safety and care described above obviously put elders at risk for injury, there are more subtle maltreatment indicators that family members of nursing home residents should be on the lookout for, so they can promptly report issues and get legal help.
Some possible signs of neglect and abuse are:
If your loved one exhibits any of these signs, it might be a red flag of underlying abuse or neglect. An Indianapolis nursing home negligence attorney can advise you of your options and how to follow up on your concerns.
If you believe your loved one is being harmed or neglected in a nursing home, you must act.
Our attorneys are available to help families and residents throughout the state in such locations as:
Here are answers to common legal and other questions that families may ask when they suspect nursing home neglect.
We recognize that these questions are only the start. Consequently, we invite you to contact our affiliated nursing home abuse lawyers for a free consultation.
Sadly, Indiana nursing facilities are not an exception to the national trend. While federal and state laws exist to provide sanctions for nursing facility neglect, some nursing home companies disregard the law to pursue profits and remain continually understaffed or staffed with low-paid, medically untrained nursing staff.
Inspections conducted by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services found that 174 (thirty-two percent) of the state's 552 nursing facilities had serious violations and deficiencies in care that put residents at risk for severe harm or even death.
Also, over fifty-eight percent of nursing homes might have unsafe conditions that could pose serious accident risks for residents, issues like wet floors, broken equipment, improperly trained staff, lack of supervision, lack of safety devices, and insufficient equipment for reducing the risk of falls.
You do not want someone you love to become part of these statistics. Was a spouse, parent, grandparent, child, or sibling abused, neglected, mistreated, or died unexpectedly while residing at a nursing facility?
If so, speak with the Indiana eldercare abuse and neglect attorneys at the Nursing Home Law Center to discuss your claim for compensation during a free case evaluation.
Call an Indianapolis nursing home negligence lawyer now to receive the assistance you need to file a claim on behalf of a victim of nursing home neglect or abuse. Fill out and submit the form here to schedule an appointment.
The legal team at Nursing Home Law Center LLC will evaluate your claim against the nursing home to stop the negligence and begin the process of building a compensation case.
Contact our neglect and abuse injury attorneys at (800) 926-7565 (toll-free phone call) or through the contact form to schedule a free consultation. All discussions with our law firm remain confidential through an attorney-client relationship.
Our abuse and neglect lawyers follow social distancing guidelines to prevent the spread of Covid-19 (coronavirus).
Statutes of Limitations and Damages Caps in Indiana Nursing Home Negligence Actions
A person with a cause of action against an Indiana nursing center has a limited period to bring a claim. For personal injury, medical malpractice, or wrongful death, the action must be filed within two years from the event's date. (IC ยง34-11-2-4; ยง34-18-7-1).
***Depending on the facility's ownership status at issue, there might be a tort claim notice requirement of 180 days.
Many times, the ownership status of the facility is not readily apparent. Consequently, families must consult with an attorney to advise the facility's status as soon as feasible.
Attorney Jeffrey D. Powless
Licensed in Indiana
Indiana Nursing Home Injury Attorney Nursing Home Law Center LLC Home