Sacramento Elder Abuse Attorneys

Emotional Abuse Attorney in Sacramento

What Is Emotional Abuse?

When most people think of abuse, they might automatically think of slaps, punches, kicks, and other forms of physical harm. However, abuse can be inflicted through nothing but words. When a person threatens, insults, harasses, berates, or scolds another person in a demeaning or frightening manner, emotional abuse may occur.

This is sadly a common situation in nursing homes and other care facilities, where understaffing or overcrowding can cause tensions to run high in nurses and other care providers. When this happens, the stress is often released through elder abuse. Emotional harm can also be a result of resident-on-resident abuse. Whatever the situation, be sure to contact a Sacramento elder abuse attorney at Newman Law Group, LLP immediately if you suspect a loved one is being abused.

Types of Emotional Abuse

Tragically, emotional abuse has become extremely prevalent in nursing homes, both in verbal and non-verbal manners. It is important to recognize that there is a wide variety of abuse, as opposed to only “traditional” or familiar types of emotional abuse such as yelling or screaming.

Just some examples of devastating emotional abuse include:

  • Treating the elder as a scapegoat for one’s own behavior
  • Blaming the elderly person
  • Humiliating the resident, alone or in front of others
  • Threatening verbally or behaving menacingly toward the elder
  • Participating in demeaning behavior toward the victim
  • Ridiculing or mocking the elderly person
  • Neglecting and ignoring the victim’s needs
  • Acting in a terrorizing way to the elderly person
  • Intimidating the victim, including to try to get them to do something
  • Isolating the victim at social events or refusing to let them interact with family or friends
  • Yelling at the elderly person
  • Threatening to take away something from the elder

We can be reached at (916) 352-3224 or anytime using our online contact form.

Signs of Emotional Abuse in an Elderly Person

Symptoms of emotional abuse vary. Due to the insults and blame that is commonly directed toward elderly persons who are dependent on the help of their caregivers, depression and emotional detachment is a possible signal. Fear is common as well when a patient is repeatedly threatened by an abuser. Victims may also become detached or introverted as a means of escape from the situation. If such signs are evident, get legal counsel and representation from a reputable firm right away.

What to Do if You Suspect Emotional Abuse?

When you believe that staff or personnel might be committing psychological or emotional abuse against an elderly resident, you need to immediately report this to the police or related authorities such as the Adult Protective Services. At this point, the government and state services can get involved by immediately sending a qualified caregiver who can access the situation by finding out the truth of the circumstances. The elderly person can also be removed to a safer, more comfortable situation as soon as it has been determined that abuse is occurring. This might be to a different ward, a completely different facility, or even to the elderly person's family.

Contact our Sacramento nursing home abuse attorneys from Newman Law Group, LLP at your earliest convenience to fight for justice and fair compensation.

Hear It From Our Clients

  • Dan genuinely cares about the elderly and disabled

    “Dan was invaluable in helping me achieve a favorable result in a lawsuit against a national hospice agency that placed money above the suffering of its dying patients.”

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Our Victories

  • $1,500,000 Neglect Case

    After a critical two months where our client was not bathed and multiple changes of condition went uncommunicated, unreported, and uncared for, she was ambulanced out to an Emergency Room, where her doctors and family were shocked to find that she had a stage IV sacral decubitus ulcer.

  • $1,300,000 Neglect Case

    The client in this case is an adult who is developmentally disabled, bedridden, and unable to speak or move independently. The intermediate care facility where she resided neglected their responsibility to ensure her safety, well-being, and necessary medical attention that she required. As a result, the client suffered a Stage IV wound.

  • $1,000,000 Nursing Home Abuse Case

    Unbeknownst to prospective residents and their families, this defendant RCFE chain was willing to systematically violate laws and its own policies designed to protect vulnerable elders. Willing to admit scores of profitable, high need residents (such as our client), and leave them at the mercy of a few unqualified, untrained and overburdened caregivers.

  • $875,000 Abandonment Case

    Through exhaustive investigation, we found that our client’s death was not the result of a few isolated mistakes by care-givers. Rather, it was the result of this corporate facility’s policies prioritizing occupancy and revenue, while ignoring staff training, staff supervision, and the quality of care being delivered.

  • $775,000 Resident-On-Resident Abuse Case

    While eating dinner at a Skilled Nursing Facility, our client was confronted by another resident who punched him, resulting in our client’s tragic death. The other resident had resided at the facility for five months, and over the course of those five months had engaged in numerous altercations with other residents, including two altercations that occurred in the 24-hour period before he assaulted and killed our client.

  • $750,000 Lack of Proper Care Case

    During our client’s roughly ten-week stay at a skilled nursing facility, he would suffer 8 falls, lose twenty (20) pounds, and develop an unstageable left heel pressure ulcer and a stage II coccyx pressure ulcer due to the facility’s reckless neglect. He was transferred to the hospital, where he was found severely dehydrated, his left heel wound required debridement for eschar and gangrene, and for the first time, a stage II coccyx ulcer was identified.

  • $678,000 Financial Abuse Case

    Our 84-year-old client was the victim of financial elder abuse related to a number of transactions, including the purchase of a home. The Defendant's real estate agents, lender, and escrow company all failed to protect our client throughout the process of purchasing the home, which was orchestrated by a woman who fraudulently siphoned off our client’s entire life savings.

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