Dunwoody Medical Malpractice Lawyer

A massive number of older adults in our country move into long-term care facilities to get the daily help they need. While we trust these places to provide a safe environment for our vulnerable family members, many residents face terrible nursing home abuse instead. Statistics across the nation show that a shocking number of seniors face either direct mistreatment or a complete lack of basic care during their stay in these facilities.

When a family member goes through this kind of trauma in a local facility, your family has the legal right to hold the wrongdoers accountable for the damage they caused by filing a claim for nursing home abuse. The business running the facility, the administrators managing the daily operations, and the specific workers can all be held legally responsible for what happened.

The legal team at Chance, Forlines, Carter & King, PC is here to stand up for your family and help you build a strong case for compensation. You can call us at (404) 760-7400 to talk about what your family is going through and learn about the options available to you. A Dunwoody nursing home abuse lawyer from our firm can step in immediately to safeguard your loved one and make sure their legal rights are fully protected.

Our firm brings a long history of success to these painful cases, having recovered over $600 million in verdicts and settlements for our clients over the years. We focus heavily on complex medical malpractice cases, including errors during surgery, a failure to diagnose serious illnesses, injuries during birth, and general hospital negligence. Because we have secured multiple multi-million dollar outcomes for families dealing with permanent disabilities and wrongful death, we know exactly how to handle the big insurance companies and corporate defense lawyers who try to downplay your family’s suffering. We have proudly served injured patients and their families all over Georgia since 1997, and our team is ready to talk whenever you are, with free, confidential consultations available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Elder Nursing Home Abuse Categories

No two cases of facility mistreatment look exactly the same because different workers have different reasons for their actions, and facilities fail in different ways. Even so, most instances of harm fall into a few main groups that help us understand exactly what went wrong when nursing home abuse takes place. Every single one of these categories represents a massive violation of trust that puts a senior citizen’s physical safety, mental peace, and financial stability at serious risk.

Physical Injuries

This type of harm happens when a staff member uses intentional physical force that hurts a resident. These cases of physical nursing home abuse often involve outright attacks like slapping, punching, kicking, or handling an older adult with extreme roughness when moving them from a bed to a wheelchair.

We also see many cases where workers use restraints inappropriately to make their own jobs easier. This includes tying a resident down physically or using heavy medications to sedate them without a real medical reason, both of which are completely unacceptable forms of nursing home abuse.

Mental Mistreatment

Emotional or psychological harm does not always leave a visible bruise, but the internal damage from this type of nursing home abuse can ruin an older adult’s health just as fast. This happens when staff members use words or actions to intentionally scare, humiliate, or isolate a resident from the people they care about. Examples include yelling at a resident, making cruel remarks about their abilities, or threatening to withhold meals or care if the resident complains.

Non-Consensual Contact

Any kind of sexual activity or contact that happens without clear consent is a severe crime and a horrifying form of nursing home abuse. This issue is particularly awful in care facilities because many residents suffer from dementia or other cognitive conditions that make it impossible for them to give consent or even explain what happened to them later. This category covers everything from inappropriate comments and forced nudity to direct physical assaults by staff members or even other residents whom the facility failed to supervise.

Financial Exploitation

Older adults are frequent targets for theft and complex scams because they often rely on others to help manage their money. Financial nursing home abuse can be simple, like a worker pocketing cash from a drawer or stealing a piece of family jewelry left on a nightstand. In more complex cases, untrustworthy people might pressure a confused senior into changing their will or signing over the deed to their home.

Lack of Basic Care

This happens when a facility simply fails to give a resident the basic things they need to survive and stay healthy, which is often classified as a form of nursing home abuse and neglect. Sometimes workers do this on purpose, but more often, it happens because the company running the building refuses to hire enough staff or train their workers correctly. When a single nurse has to care for dozens of patients at once, residents are left in soiled sheets for hours or miss their medication entirely.

Warning Signs of Nursing Home Abuse

The specific clues that point to mistreatment depend heavily on what kind of harm is taking place in the building. A family member facing financial theft will show very different signs than someone who is being ignored by the nursing staff, but most forms of nursing home abuse eventually cause noticeable changes in a person’s body or behavior. Families should keep a close eye out for these specific warning signs:

• Unexplained cuts or bruises
• Pressure sores from sitting too long
• Dropping weight out of nowhere
• Unwashed clothes or messy hair
• Sudden withdrawal or anger
• Acting scared around certain nurses
• Dry skin and mouth from low fluids
• Leaving the building unescorted
• Frequent tumbles and falls

If you notice these red flags of potential nursing home abuse, you need to take action quickly to get your family member away from the danger. Once you report the situation to local police and state regulators, your next step should be reaching out to a legal professional who knows how to handle these companies.

The attorneys at Chance, Forlines, Carter & King, PC know how to guide Georgia families through every single part of this difficult legal process. To get a clear look at what you can do next, get in touch with a Dunwoody nursing home abuse lawyer as soon as you can.

Georgia Nursing Home Abuse Regulations

Every state has its own set of specific guidelines and legal rules that control how you must bring a case after an older adult suffers harm in a facility. If you do not follow these rules perfectly, your family could lose the right to collect any compensation at all for nursing home abuse.

The most important rule you need to know is the timeline for filing a lawsuit, which is called the statute of limitations. In Georgia, you generally have two years from the date of the injury to file a lawsuit against a negligent facility for nursing home abuse. If the mistreatment involves medical errors by licensed professionals, Georgia law also requires you to file a special affidavit from a medical expert who agrees that the facility fell below the accepted standard of care.

Missing this strict two-year deadline for a nursing home abuse claim carries massive consequences for your case. If you try to file your paperwork even a single day late, the judge will almost certainly throw your case out of court completely, leaving you with no way to hold the facility accountable. Because gathering medical records and hiring experts takes a significant amount of time, you should contact a lawyer immediately after you suspect something is wrong.

Legal Help for Nursing Home Abuse

You do not have to carry the heavy burden of fighting a massive healthcare corporation all by yourself while your family tries to heal from nursing home abuse. The team at Chance, Forlines, Carter & King, PC will stay right by your side from the first phone call until the final resolution of your legal claim.

Please do not wait to get the answers and support your family deserves during this painful time. To get your case moving forward today, call (404) 760-7400 to speak directly with our team, because a Dunwoody nursing home abuse lawyer is ready to stand up and demand justice for your loved one.

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