Miami Nursing Home Abuse and Elderly Neglect Attorney

If you or an elderly relative has been injured, turn to this Miami Nursing Home Abuse and Neglect Lawyer for help. Elderly people need care more than younger people. In fact, in many cases, they may need as much assistance as children.

Nursing homes are places where this care may be provided. However, they are also places where abuse and injuries can occur. These injuries may include:

• Lacerations
• bruising and hematomas
• bleeding
• hair loss
• infection
• decubitus ulcers or bedsores
• IV infiltration which can cause infection or amputation
• Fractures
• Lacerations
• heart attacks
• strokes
• pulmonary embolism
• septic shock.

Death may even result from nursing home abuse and neglect. If this has occurred to your loved one, then you may be able to pursue a wrongful death case on your loved one’s behalf. In a wrongful death case, a “personal representative of the estate” (“PR”) will be appointed to lead/head your loved one’s estate which will be set-up. The PR will be the “client” and will make decisions about the case.

Once the case settles, your loved one’s survivors or “beneficiaries of the estate” will receive monies from the case.

Nursing home abuse can come in many forms. One type of nursing home abuse involves restrains. Many times, employees in nursing homes don’t want to deal with their patients. Nursing home employees may be overworked and overwhelmed. Therefore, they may restrain patients in order to keep them in their beds. Such restrains may include physical restraints (e.g., tying them down in bed) or giving them drugs/medications to sedate them.

These forms of restrain may result in all sorts of catastrophic injuries, including severe bed sores.

Nursing home abuse also comes in the form of physical abuse, assault/battery, emotional/psychological abuse, and sexual abuse/assault/rape.

Nursing home patients are also frequently taken advantage of financially. Elderly patients may not have great control of their finances. As such, nursing home employees may take advantage of and steal from them.

If you or a loved one have been the victim of nursing home abuse or neglect, contact this Miami Nursing Home Abuse and Neglect Law Firm at 954-448-7288. He can help if the abuse or neglect has occurred anywhere in Florida (including Broward County, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach and Palm Beach County). Mr. Quackenbush will discuss your case free of charge.

Nursing home injuries may also result from neglect. Neglect is defined as a lack of care or attention to patients. For example, nursing home patients may simply be left in their beds for long stretches of time. This can lead to severe bed sores.

Bed sores are caused when constant pressure is applied to a body part consistently for a long stretch of time. Bed sores typically result in “bony” areas, although they may occur anyplace on the body.

Bed sores are also referred to as:

• pressure sores
• pressure ulcers
• decubitus ulcers

Unfortunately, bed sores can cause all sorts of severe health problems. These include infections. This makes it all the more important that, when bed sores are discovered, they be treated quickly. This may prevent the development of infections and other severe health problems.

Neglect in nursing homes may result from improper nurse-patient ratios. That is, in a nursing home, it is important for enough nurses to be present to take care of the patients. If there aren’t enough nurses, then patients may easily be neglected.

Nursing home patients may also be isolated as a form of punishment. Nursing home employees may decide to place a patient in a solitary area by themselves for long stretches of time to correct poor behavior. However, such “solitary confinement” can lead to severe emotional and psychological injuries.

Injuries in nursing homes may also occur when patients aren’t properly monitored. That is, certain patients may not be able to be left alone. For example, some patients are “fall risks” for various reasons (e.g., they may have vertigo or be on medications that cause falls). If these patients are allowed to walk around the nursing home without assistance and fall as a result/sustain injuries, then the nursing home may be responsible.

Sometimes, nursing home patients aren’t given proper nutrition/hydration. If this occurs, then the nursing home patients can fall ill and even pass away.

Medication/prescription drug mis-fills frequently occur in nursing homes. This happens in part due to the fact that nursing homes are such hectic places. Nursing home employees may have to fill prescription medication bottles for many patients, and one patient may be given another patient’s medication as a result, the wrong kind of medication or the wrong amount. This can lead to all sorts of health problems. If it occurred to you or a loved one, then you may be able to pursue a personal injury case.

Nurses and nursing assistants provide most of the care in nursing homes. These medical providers are expected to offer care/treatment that lives up to the “standard of care” of a similar reasonable medical provider. That is, nurses and nursing assistants are expected to offer the same or better treatment or care as a reasonable nurse or nursing assistant.

If you or your loved one is the victim of elderly abuse or nursing home neglect, then you should contact the Florida Department of Elder Affairs. You should also report abuse to the police, so that appropriate actions can be taken.

If you or a loved one is hurt in a nursing home, you should also take photographs of the injuries. This is because hopefully your injuries will improve. However, if they do, you will want to be able to show what they looked like at their worst as part of any case you bring.

Finally, if you or a loved one is injured in a nursing home, you should attempt to obtain any surveillance of the incident. Nursing homes frequently have surveillance videos. Such surveillance footage can reveal abuse and neglect.

However, it is important to realize that you must obtain this surveillance footage quickly. Many surveillance videos are on “loops,” which means that the videos tape over themselves every so often (i.e., every 3 days, every 30 days, etc.). If you don’t obtain the tape quickly, it may be lost forever.

If you hire Mr. Quackenbush, he will likely send a letter to the nursing home advising them to “preserve” and not alter the video. If the nursing home either 1) destroys the video or 2) changes it after receiving the letter, it can be severely sanctioned in court.

If you or a loved one has been injured in a nursing home located in Miami-Dade County (including Aventura, Coral Gables, Cutler Bay, Doral, Florida City, Hialeah, Hialeah Gardens, Homestead, Key Biscayne, Miami Beach, Miami Gardens, Miami Lakes, North Miami, North Miami Beach, Opa-Locka, Palmetto Bay, Pinecrest, South Miami, and Sunny Isles Beach), call Mr. Quackenbush at 954-448-7288 to talk about your case for free.