Once you have placed an aging parent into a short-term or long-term care facility you will want to know that they are being treated with respect and compassion. Unfortunately, people 60 and over have a one in 10 chance of experiencing some type of elder abuse. Seventy percent of sexual abuse occurs in nursing homes but is believed only 30 percent are actually reported.
Nursing home abuse goes digital
Thanks in no small part to the popularity of social media (including Facebook and Twitter, as well as apps like Snapchat), those perpetrating abuse against the elderly and vulnerable in nursing homes, long-term care facilities, memory care residences and assisted living facilities are finding a new audience - and a new way of getting caught. There have been a spate of reports from across the country (some of them in Illinois) of workers trusted to care for the elderly, ill and incapacitated in facilities abusing that trust and documenting the abuses in photos or video that is then posted to social media networks.
7 warning signs of nursing home abuse
According to the U.S Department of Health and Human Services Administration on Aging (AoA), hundreds of thousands of elders in the U.S. suffer from abuse and neglect every year. No shortage of elderly nursing home residents in Alton, Edwardsville and throughout Southern Illinois are among the victims of this widespread epidemic.
