Long Beach Nursing Home Abuse & Neglect Lawyers

How do you choose the best facility for your family member with hundreds of for-profit nursing homes doing business in Los Angeles County? Depending on the care they need, you may choose between skilled nursing facilities, assisted living centers, board and care homes, memory care, or facilities that cater to patients who are more in need of constant medical treatment.

Doing your homework to find the best possible Long Beach facility is imperative. However, even the most thorough investigation will not automatically prevent your loved one from falling victim to a negligent or abusive staff member or fellow resident at some point. Most facilities provide excellent care. Some don’t. If this happens, you need to speak with an experienced Long Beach nursing home abuse and neglect attorney right away.

The attorneys at the Southern California Nursing Home Law Group have 20 years of experience helping clients protect their loved ones from elder abuse all across Southern California. Our lawyers are knowledgeable, compassionate, and aggressive enough to stand up to the owners in court. We have a proven success rate and have recovered millions of dollars on behalf of elder neglect victims.

There are four main types of abuse you should be monitoring for when you visit your loved one at an assisted living facility or a nursing home. These types of abuse include:

• Physical Abuse: Any kind of physical harm that is inflicted on your loved one can qualify as physical abuse. This can be hitting, slapping, grabbing, restraining, kicking, etc. Any type of intentional act that causes your loved one to suffer an injury might rise to the level of physical abuse.
• Emotional Abuse: Emotional abuse can include actions like psychological or verbal harm from the staff. They may use threats to get a patient to be fearful or demean or harass them. Emotional abuse is not usually a one-time event. It involves repeated threats and admonishments in most cases.
• Sexual Abuse: Unfortunately, sexual abuse is also a problem at nursing homes around the county. Sexual abuse is any “non-consensual sexual contact” from one person to another. This type of abuse is one of the most unreported and under-investigated kinds of abuse in nursing homes today.
• Financial Abuse: Financial abuse usually involves financial theft. This is accomplished by coercing a patient to hand over their bank card or credit card, forging checks, etc. This occurs with home health care workers too.

Monitoring your family member, by visiting regularly, is imperative to uncover any potential abuse or neglect. You should familiarize yourself with some of the more common signs to better prepare yourself to catch any unprofessional and harmful behavior.

Identifying possible signs of neglect or abuse can help you uncover the truth and build a stronger case against the nursing home in question. Some of the warning signs you should watch for include:

• Frequent, unexplained illnesses
• Unexplained injuries (or explanations that do not add up)
• Sudden, rapid weight loss
• Unexplained changes in behavior and emotions
• Disorganized and messy living conditions
• Bruises, cuts, lacerations, open wounds
• Bedsores or pressure sores
• Unresponsiveness
• Unexplained and unexpected patient death
• Lack of hygiene
• Dry, chapped lips or sunken eyes
• Sudden depression and withdrawal from activities and hobbies

One of the biggest problems nursing homes have is the quality of workers they hire. Despite turning quite a profit, these jobs tend to pay low and have high turnover. This means that because the staff seems competent and attentive when you are doing initial inspections, it could be an entirely different staff there several months later.

Nursing home neglect is different from abuse. Nursing home neglect is elevated to abuse when the staff acts intentionally. For example, someone who forgets to give a patient their dinner and water is guilty of neglect. If the staff member is angry with the patient and intentionally withholds their dinner as a form of punishment, then the staff member is guilty of abuse.

Determining what is abuse or neglect in some situations can be complicated. If you suspect something is going on with a loved one who is in one of these facilities, do not attempt to handle things yourself. Instead, let our skillful Long Beach lawyers focused on elder abuse and neglect help. Contact the Southern California Nursing Home Law Group today to schedule a free initial consultation.