Tennessee Nursing Home Emotional and Mental Abuse Lawyer

Emotional or mental abuse in a nursing home can cover a multitude of different types of abuse. This could be verbal or degrading abuse of a patient such as talking down to them, yelling at them, or treating them like a child. This can also involve physical assaults which are harmful emotionally and mentally just as they are physically.

If you or a loved one has suffered because of emotional or mental abuse in a nursing home, it is pertinent that you contact an attorney as soon as possible. A Tennessee nursing home emotional and mental abuse lawyer can assist in recovering any damages you may be deserving of.

Common Examples of Abuse

In most cases, the employees will yell at patients, talk down to them, order them around, tell them that if they do not behave they are going to do something harmful to them, intimidate them, and things of that nature. The type of abuse suffered is usually verbal.

Potential Consequences

These residents, even when they have difficulty communicating with people, still have the core emotions that all people have, and so when they are talked down to, yelled at, and threatened, they are going to act how anyone else would. It will hurt their feelings and scare them.

These individuals are under the control of the staff, and it is incredibly difficult for an individual to live in a place where they are being abused. This can often lead to post traumatic stress or depression. Due to the severity of such consequences, it is essential that an individual contact a Tennessee nursing home emotional and mental abuse attorney to end any such occurrence of abuse that is happening.

Warning Signs

The psychiatrist experts in these cases will show a court how there were emotional changes, and often will show that the patient became withdrawn from their family or they stopped communicating. It is important to note that every individual acts differently. Some will act out more if they are being emotionally or mentally abused.

Vulnerable Individuals

Most of the patients that are mistreated mentally or emotionally are patients that have something that prevents them from acting with a clear head.

For example, an older patient might scream or moan. A lot of times, if there is not a properly trained or caring nurse or aide, the employee will get frustrated with the noise and yell at that patient, or they will physically strike or hurt that patient. Sometimes, nurses or CNTs are overworked, stressed, and then they have a patient or resident that is difficult to handle and sometimes they will take their frustration out on that resident.

To properly compensate for this negligent behavior, it is important that an individual contact a Tennessee nursing home emotional and mental abuse attorney as soon as possible.

Determining Liability

Under the law, there is a duty for when an individual knows something, and then there is a separate duty for when an individual should have known something. If a nursing home claims to not have known any abuse was happening, an individual can ask if they should have known, if there were clues, if there were steps they could have made to prevent it from happening, and ask what type of procedures were in place to make sure they were informed as to what their employees were doing or how all the residents were behaving.

If the nursing home did not have procedures to do those things or if they ignored their own procedures or clues, then they would be just as liable as if they did know. A knowledgeable Tennessee nursing home emotional and mental abuse lawyer will fight to help make sure that any responsible party is held accountable for abuse.

Bringing Forward a Claim

To bring these types of cases forward, an individual will have to prove that emotional or mental abuse has occurred. If there is emotional or mental abuse of a patient, then an individual will probably need to have witness statements and/or some type of evidence that shows their loved one has gone through this abuse.

However, it may not be necessary to immediately bring forward a lawsuit. Sometimes, the issue can be handled with a complaint to the Tennessee ombudsman and a lot of times, that is just one aspect of a lot of different claims that could have been made against that home. Typically, when there is an emotional or mental abuse claim at a nursing home, there are many others for that very same nursing home. An experienced Tennessee nursing home emotional and mental abuse lawyer can aid in determining the best course of action for an individual’s particular case.