Abuse In Nursing Home

While researching abuse in nursing homes, I was surprised to find out that it happens a lot more than I knew. When you hear nursing home, you immediately think about elderly people. However, that is not always the elderly. Abuse is defined as to treat (a person or an animal) with cruelty or violence, especially regularly or repeatedly. Abuse also can be describes as neglect and mistreatment. I feel that with such a high amount of abuse in nursing home and long term facilities people should know the facts before putting family member or loved on into a care facility. I do know that not all facilities are subject to abuse, neglect, and mistreatment but you will be surprised on the information I have found during this research.

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Out of this amount 44% of resident have been victim of abuse. There are up to, if not more, 100,000 cases or abuse reported each year. For every one case, reported twelve are not. Statistics show that 95% of 2000 residents of a nursing home have had been neglected or seen neglect put on other residents.

According to congressional study, one in every 25 Americans over the age of 65 is a victim of abuse. Not only the residents of nursing homes experience abuse, so does the staff. There are not as many reports on abuse towards the staff but it does happen. Residents who have mental illness’ are just as likely to become agitated and or aggressive. The staffs are trained to handle residents who become distressed. In some cases the staff may become aggressive towards the residents due to the fact that they feel the residents might be “hard to handle”. This is never an excuse to become violent towards another human being despite his or her disability.

A well-known case about abuse to residents of the nursing home/ long-term care facilities is Pennhurst Asylum. Opened in 1908, for approximately 10,000 residents, on a vast 120

He described how he had asked one of his colleagues which injection he could use to cause the most discomfort to a patient without permanently injuring him. Then he proceeded to administer that injection to the bully. Pennhurst were accused of dehumanization and was said to provide no help to the mentally challenged.

After the newscaster revealed the horrible conditions, the institution finally closed two decades later in the end of 1980. There will always be abuse in some form in nursing homes and long care facilities. Either from residents to staff, or vice versa. With high statistics of abuse in long-term care facilities and nursing homes, it might not ever end, but we can hope to bring awareness to the situation. Staff and residents of such facilities should follow the laws given to them. The respect from resident to staff is a hard relationship to build. It can be done! Staff should always remember that these residents need them to live. I feel the more the staff of these facilities know how important they really are there would be less cases of abuse towards residents. The residents, might have