Elder Abuse Lawsuits

Part 3 in an Elder Abuse Blog Series: Elder Abuse Lawsuits

In our previous two blogs, we discussed the different types of elder abuse as well as the signs you can look out for to detect if your loved one is suffering through elder abuse. In this third and final blog in our series on elder abuse, Kuhlman & Lucas explains steps you can take to prevent elder abuse and more information about elder abuse lawsuits.

Medical and health researchers are constantly trying to improve efforts at evaluating prevention strategies to see what works and what does not. While you may not be able to control what types of prevention strategies your elder’s nursing home or assisted care facility uses, there are some prevention steps that you yourself can take to avoid filing any elder abuse lawsuits.

1. Conduct thorough research before committing your loved one to a caretaker or nursing home facility. Making the choice to put your aged loved one under someone else’s care can be difficult. If you no longer have the time or means to take care of them, conduct thorough research of multiple care facilities to find a high-quality one with trained caretakers. Read online reviews, talk to other people and definitely talk to the staff at the facility. Often, people choose a facility simply because of proximity or affordability. These can be good things, but they don’t indicate quality.
2. If at all possible, visit your loved one frequently. Making frequent visits to see your loved one opens up more opportunities not only to notice the signs of elder abuse if it is happening, but it can discourage abuse. If the facility knows that you frequently check in on your loved one, they may not as readily participate in activities that constitute abuse.
3. Ask questions. Ask your elderly loved one questions about the facility and their caretakers. By opening up honest communication, there is a better chance that you will notice situations and/or behaviors at the facility that carry a potential for abuse and hopefully stop it before it happens. Also, do not be afraid to bring your questions or concerns to the facility itself.
4. Even after your loved one has been placed under someone else’s care, continue to research the facility. The caretaker or nursing home facility may have appeared wonderful upon first inspection, but sometimes these care facilities can put on a front just to get people in their doors.
5. Educate others about the realities of elder abuse. The better informed the general public is about nursing home and elder abuse, the less frequently it is likely to happen. The more people are aware, the less likely these facilities will be to act abusively because they will no longer think they can go undetected.

We hope our elder abuse blog series has been helpful and informative. We are passionate advocates of victims at Kuhlman & Lucas, LLC. Our job as personal injury attorneys is to fight for the rights of those who have been injured through the negligence or wrongful actions of others. If you believe you have an elder abuse lawsuit, please contact our firm today for a free and confidential case evaluation.