The Law Office of Robert H. Gregory represents victims of nursing home neglect or abuse throughout Madison County, Central, and Southern Illinois. Nursing home neglect and abuse attorney, Robert H. Gregory, has 25 years of experience, in over 16 states, representing injured victims, including those injured in nursing home facilities.

Because he is personally committed to nursing home residents and their families, he is providing you with the following information to assist you in understanding and determining if your parent, grandparent, or spouse, may be the victim of nursing home neglect and abuse.

Please contact Madison County nursing home neglect and abuse attorney, Robert H. Gregory, to schedule a free confidential consultation to discuss your situation.

Some Signs of Nursing Home Neglect and Abuse

Decubitus Ulcers (also referred to as "pressure ulcers" or "bedsores") - A facility MUST ensure that a resident who enters a nursing home free from pressure ulcers does not develop them while a resident of the facility, unless it is shown to be clinically unavoidable.

Unexplained Injuries or Repeated Falls - Many injuries to nursing home residents (skin tears, bruises, and fractures) can be directly traced to lack of adequate staffing to assist with basic personal needs such as toileting or transferring to bed.

Dehydration/Malnutrition - Residents are always at risk for dehydration, due to a decreased ability to know when they are thirsty; and malnutrition, due to many factors, including loss of appetite and inability to feed themselves. Once again, inadequate staffing and/or poorly educated staff members contribute to these types of neglect.

Medication Errors - Over-medication, under-medication or improper monitoring of medications can have devastating effects on the health of nursing home residents. Additionally, the prescribing of certain medications can result in other side effects, such as lack of appetite, dizziness, sleepiness, agitation, etc., which lead to other problems or injuries to the resident if not monitored appropriately.

Physical, Mental, or Sexual Abuse - Sadly, these situations arise frequently in nursing home settings and the abuse can come in many forms. Whether the abuse is resident upon resident or staff upon resident, the major areas of abuse can be identified as follows:

• Teasing, cursing or disrespectful language directed towards a resident or any comments which are intended to demean the resident or attack a resident’s dignity.
• “Rough” handling of a resident by a staff member, which may or may not lead to injury. Understaffing, “burnout”, and personal issues can lead to intentional physical abuse of residents.
• Physical contact by one resident to another. Examples of this include pushing, pinching, shoving, or punching.
• Any inappropriate touching or sexual contact by a staff member or by one resident to another resident. Many nursing home residents are at risk for sexual abuse because of Alzheimer’s disease or other dementias. Not only are some residents unable to prevent these types of abuses to themselves, they may not be able to verbalize to a family member or staff when it has occurred.

Nursing homes are required by law to identify the areas for which a resident may be at risk for neglect or abuse and then to provide the necessary care and treatment to prevent those incidents from occurring. Nursing homes are required to maintain and implement specific policies and procedures relating to all areas of nursing and personal care and those guidelines must be followed by staff members to ensure that each resident attains the highest practicable physical, mental, and psychosocial well-being possible.