Over 3.2 million adults living in nursing homes and other long term care facilities in the U.S. As many as 40 percent of all adults will enter a nursing home at some point during their lives and as the U.S. population ages, the number of nursing home residents is expected to grow. Many of these elders are well-cared for but many may be the victims of abuse.
Elder abuse, particularly when it involves a patient in a residential care facility, can be difficult to detect and for every reported case of abuse, more than five cases may go unreported.
Nursing home abuse is a serious concern and seniors who have been abused have a 300 percent greater chance of death in the 3 years following the abuse than those who aren’t abused. Up to 1 in 6 nursing home residents may be the victim of abuse or neglect every year.
Though many residents are well-cared for, abuse continues to be more prevalent than most people wish to believe and over three-fourths of the cases of nursing home abuse are perpetrated by caregivers.
A congressional report showed that an examination of nursing home records conducted over a two-year period showed that nearly 1 in 3 nursing homes were cited for violations that had the potential to cause harm and almost 10 percent of all nursing homes have violations that caused actual harm, serious injury or placed them in jeopardy of death.
A survey of nursing home residents showed that up to 44 percent of nursing home residents reported that they had been abused at some time in residency and nearly all of those surveyed (95%) had seen another resident neglected.
A study conducted by the U.S. General Accountability Office revealed that state regulators are likely to miss signs of abuse. The GAO found that 70 percent of state surveys missed significant deficiencies and 15 percent missed notice of actual harm or immediate jeopardy of a nursing home resident.
Due to reports like these, legislatures in all 50 states have passed anti-elder-abuse laws but nursing home abuse continues to occur.