Many families in the Kansas City area, on both sides of the Missouri River, must trust their loved ones to the care of a nursing home, and assisted living facility or to some other individual or organization that provides professional medical and personal care.
It is always deeply troubling to a family when they realize that their trust was misplaced and that their loved one has been hurt by the very people that were paid to help him or her get on with life as he or she aged. Oftentimes, this abuse does not even come to light, as up to 80 percent of cases never get publicly disclosed.
This sort of abuse can take many forms. It can include outright physical violence, as well as medical malpractice. In the broader sense, abuse can also include neglect or critical omissions in a patient’s care. For instance, a patient who is not getting attended to enough may develop bedsores, while other patients may slip and fall because the facility is not caring for the environment.
Finally, verbal and emotional abuse can also profoundly affect a senior citizen’s mental and even physical health. Some forms of abuse and manipulation or even designed to induce a senior citizen to turn over a lot of his or her hard-earned wealth to a person who, deep down, is anything but trustworthy and deserving.
Of course, if a family suspects any form of abuse, they should contact local authorities or others who are mandated to offer assistance. However, they may also need legal assistance, particularly if the abuse has caused financial harm in some way. In this respect, our law office has years of experience handling elder abuse cases and have in the course of that experience been able to recover millions in compensation for victims.
