What Is Financial Abuse in Nursing Homes?

Nursing Home Lawyer

When you place your loved one into a nursing home, you think they’re safe and you hope that they are being well cared for. However elder abuse in nursing home and other long-term care facilities is going to be extremely common across the globe. The World Health Organization reports that one in six people over the age of 60 will experience some form of elder abuse.

There are many different kinds of abuse including physical, sexual and emotional. Financial abuse in nursing home is a major problem that can be difficult for family members to realize that financial abuse is happening. Caregivers and other nursing home staff are going to have easy access to the personal items of their elderly residents. This means that items can easily be removed from residence rooms without residents even noticing. Elderly residents are going to be more likely to be taken advantage of or course and making changes to wills and their bank account. This may have long-term consequences on the residents’ and their families’ financial future.

Financial abuse in a nursing home occurs on the residence money or personal belongings are taken from them. The National Institute on Aging says that financial abuse can include items or actions such as removing valuables from the room, forming forging checks, taking their retirement income, using their bank account or credit cards. Financial theft can also have actions that have further reaching consequences such as changing the name on bank accounts, wills, life insurance policies, or even the title to an elderly adult home.

But what kind of sign should you be watching for financial abuse of your loved one? If you think that your loved one is experiencing financial abuse at the hands of their and resident nursing home facility you should reach out to a nursing home while you’re in Cherry Hill, NJ. 

You can look to see if your loved one is being financially abused as if they do not recall important financial matters or changes to financial documents such as their wills, deeds of their homes, and make accounts. If you see that your loved one’s name is on a slip from the bank that they do not recall taking money out of the ATM then there is cause for concern and you should address it.

Their inability to remember these details could be because of their diminished mental capacity with results from old age and other elderly disorders such as Alzheimer’s and dementia, however it is also possible that the money obtained access to the account has helped themselves to your loved ones’ money. Other signs of financial abuse in nursing homes can be unusual changes in spending behavior, loans that an elderly adult may not be able to explain, fear and anxiety when you bring up their finances, assets that disappear such as cash and security of your valuables.

If you think that your loved one is giving financial control to somebody new without warning, and you think it is the result of financial abuse, then reach out to a nursing home lawyer in Cherry Hill, NJ, such as the ones available at Davis & Brusca, LLC