It’s estimated that up to 5 million elders are abused in the United States every year. And perhaps the most disturbing fact is that we have no idea how much higher the actual numbers may be—as many as 23 in 24 cases of elder abuse never get reported at all. If we don’t know that elder abuse is happening, we are powerless to stop it.

It’s less of a question of who can report nursing home abuse and more about when and how to do it.

Nursing home ratings can be a good starting point if you’re searching for a long-term care facility for yourself or a loved one. But should you rely on government ratings when choosing a nursing home? We recommend taking these ratings into consideration, but doing more outside research and in-person visiting before you make a final choice.

Making the decision to place a parent or a loved one in a nursing home is never easy. While you or other family members might have done your best to keep them at home, the care that many elderly or chronically ill patients require is outside the scope of what most people are capable of. The care, treatment, and supervision provided by nursing homes might be exactly what your loved one needed.

You did your best when you went through the process of selecting a facility, perhaps going on tours, reading reviews from other families, and reviewing Medicare ratings. Unfortunately, it is not always easy to glean what is actually going on inside of a nursing home. Regular supervision is an absolute necessity to keep residents safe, and any lack thereof can be considered neglect if someone is injured.

When you and your family make the difficult decision that a nursing home is the best place to give your loved one the care they need, you trust that you will be kept involved. You know that your family member’s health condition can change at any time. One of the reasons your loved one moved into a long-term care facility is so that their pressing health needs could be addressed on a daily basis by trained professionals.

You expect that if your family member’s condition changes in any way, you will be notified immediately. If your relative falls and breaks a bone, suffers a heart attack, or develops a viral infection, you naturally assume that staff members will contact you as soon as possible. But what if they don’t?

The decision to put a family member in a nursing home is a painstaking one for many families. They worry about their incapacitated or elderly loved ones feeling abandoned by them. They also worry about the quality of care they’re going to receive at these facilities’ hands, especially given the high resident-to-staff ratios.

Many families will spend significant time researching then visiting these facilities before ultimately deciding to commit to a particular nursing or assisted living facility. They do that to minimize the chances of their loved one experiencing health declines, such as contracting an infection.

There are some infections that nursing home residents have to worry about contracting more than others. A discussion of these and how they may shed light on abuse or neglect that’s happening at your loved one’s facility will be unpacked below.

When residents of a nursing home suffer a fall, it can have a catastrophic effect on their health. Sometimes, falls are fatal. Even when they aren’t, they can result in traumatic brain injuries, hip fractures, and other painful and debilitating outcomes.

Of the roughly 1.6 million people who live in nursing facilities around the U.S., about half suffer at least one fall annually. Nursing homes must do a better job to protect residents from falls.

It’s estimated that as many as five million older adults are abused in the U.S. each year. These numbers may seem impossibly high, and lead many to ask: where does most elder abuse occur? Elder abuse has been known to happen in a person’s own home, in the home of a friend or family member, in a hospital, or in any other residential or healthcare setting. There is evidence that nursing home abuse is one of the most prevalent types of elder abuse.

But do most elderly abuse victims get the support they need to recover? Unfortunately, given the prevalence of elder abuse and the high percentage of unreported cases, not every elderly victim of abuse is supported in the ways needed for recovery.

The COVID 19 pandemic has showed many of us that parts of or society weren’t functioning as smoothly as we thought they were. It’s also showed us that what we previously thought was the best option actually wasn’t at all, and that alternative options were available. One of those options were nursing homes.

Before the pandemic, many families thought these were the best places for their older loved ones to spend the rest of their lives and receive great care. However, COVID has shown us that that’s not always true. It’s possible that families will be more apt to caring for their elderly loved ones for as long as possible before sending them to long-term care facilities.

Many nursing homes have been bought into the private sector since 2009. The big question that this presents is whether or not private ownership of nursing homes has a positive effect on the residents and their health. Since resident health should be at the forefront of a facility’s priorities, it’s an important question to ask when we see the ownership trending toward private equity.

If your loved one has been abused or neglected in their nursing home, whether it was privately or publicly owned, they deserve justice for the injuries and other damages that they suffered. With the help of a nursing home abuse lawyer from Shrager & Sachs, you’ll be able to defend the rights of your loved one and ensure the negligent party is held responsible for the harm they caused your older relative in their care.

When you trust a nursing home to take care of your elderly and vulnerable loved one, you expect them to have the appropriate knowledge to ensure that they are as healthy as possible. Unfortunately, not every long-term care facility will ensure that your loved one gets the best care possible and will put cutting costs above the standard of care they provide. When that happens, it can lead to abuse, negligence, and even death for the residents.