Nursing homes are tasked with a big responsibility: caring for our elderly loved ones. While there’s certainly a lot involved with adequately caring for an aging individual, nursing homes should be abiding by state and federal regulations to ensure that their residents are safe and that they receive proper care. If you’re reading this post, though, then you might be concerned about the care that you’re loved one has received in a nursing home and are considering taking legal action.
One common way that nursing home neglect occurs is through malnutrition, so this week let’s look at some of the common signs of malnutrition and risk factors associated with it.
Signs of malnutrition
Malnutrition can take many forms, but there are also some glaring indicators that your loved one isn’t being properly cared for. Each of the following symptoms could be indicative of your loved one suffering from malnutrition:
- Loss of weight
- Excessive tiredness
- Increased irritability
- Lack of appetite
- Difficulty concentrating
- Increased healing time for even minor wounds
- Consistent feeling of coldness
While many medical conditions can cause malnutrition, so, too, can poor nursing home care. And the results can be tragic. Malnutrition can lead to cognitive decline as well as cardiovascular and respiratory failure.
What you can do about it
If you have concerns about your loved one, then you should try your best to be proactive. Ask lots of questions both of your loved one and nursing home staff. Seek out nutrition plans and logs that indicate when your loved one ate and what they ate. Even speaking to other nursing home residents can help shed light on the nursing home’s practices.
When those efforts aren’t enough to get the answers you and your loved one deserve, or you’re struggling to even carry out those steps, then it’s probably time to speak to an attorney. Legal action might help you find accountability, recover compensation for damages suffered, and help ensure that other nursing home residents don’t have to face a similar fate. If you’d like to learn more about how to take legal action for nursing home neglect, then you should think about speaking with an attorney who is well-versed in this area of the law.
