If and when you settle on nursing home care for a loved one, you probably imagine a scenario where around-the-clock care is administered in a nurturing and safe environment. The reality, unfortunately, can be quite different.
With nursing home residents usually taking several medications, it’s easy for staff to mix up prescriptions or provide the wrong dosage. Furthermore, nursing home staffs often over medicate residents with antipsychotic medicines in order to maintain control over them. Elderly loved ones might not even know whether they are receiving more medicine than necessary or taking antipsychotic medicines as a form of control. A few signs of overmedication you should look out for include:
- Constant fatigue
- Oversleeping
- Agitation
- Erratic changes in personality
- Withdrawn behavior
Federal and state laws prohibit using medicine to restrain people, but some nursing home facilities routinely overprescribe medicine to make day-to-day operations easier to manage. Of course, excessive use of this type of medication can cause serious harm to victims, including death.
Whenever visiting loved ones in a nursing home, look for signs of physical and emotional abuse. Ask staff for copies of medication order sheets and watch as staff dispenses medication to ensure the proper medication and dosages are being administered.
Elderly citizens should not have to suffer at the hands of negligent or abusive nursing home staffs and depending upon the circumstances, legal action can be taken for battery, negligence and improper supervision or care. It’s difficult to put a price tag on these types of damages, especially the pain and suffering undergone by nursing home residents, but with the help of a skilled nursing home abuse attorney such as our team at Weinstein & Cohen, you do have recourse.
If you or someone you care about has been injured or involved in a nursing home accident or the subject of nursing home abuse, contact the attorneys at Weinstein & Cohen at 239-793-3331, or visit fairnessforall, for an absolutely free and confidential legal consultation to learn more about your options.
