Nursing Home Abuse

Every year, millions of people are forced into the heartbreaking decision to place a loved one in a nursing home. It’s a choice that’s not made lightly and without concerns. You expect your parents or grandparents to be well cared for and treated with dignity in a nursing home. However, far too often they find themselves the victims of nursing home abuse.

According to a report from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), 94,499 U.S. nursing homes were cited for violations in 2023, thousands of which involved issues such as inadequate staffing, medication errors, failure to prevent infections, and a lack of monitoring for residents with mobility limitations. All these caregiver violations can lead to serious injuries.

The idea that these caregivers, trusted to aid and assist our loved ones, could be abusive at any level is horrifying and unconscionable. At Fieger Law, we don’t tolerate this type of mistreatment and neither should you. We’ll fight to get you and your family the compensation and respect you deserve.

Abuse and neglect are often discussed together, but they’re not the same thing. Both can cause serious harm, but they stem from different behaviors and require different forms of investigation. Understanding the distinction can help families identify warning signs and act sooner.

What Is Nursing Home Abuse?

Abuse involves actions that cause physical, emotional, or financial harm to a resident. These actions may be committed by staff members, visiting caregivers, or even other residents when supervision is inadequate. Common forms of nursing home abuse include:

• Physical Abuse: Hitting, pushing, slapping, unnecessary use of restraints, or rough handling during transfers or bathing
• Emotional or Psychological Abuse: Threats, intimidation, humiliation, isolation, or verbal harassment that cause fear or emotional distress
• Sexual Abuse: Any non-consensual sexual contact or behavior, including exposure, touching, or coercion
• Financial Exploitation: Stealing money or property, forging signatures, coercing residents into changing wills or financial documents, or misusing personal account information

Abuse often leaves both visible and invisible scars. Even when physical injuries are minor, emotional trauma can have long-lasting effects.

What Is Nursing Home Neglect?

Neglect occurs when staff fail to provide necessary care, supervision, or basic services. Unlike abuse, neglect may not be intentional, but that doesn’t lessen the harm it causes. Residents who depend on caregivers for daily needs face serious risks when those needs go unmet. Types of neglect include:

• Medical: Failure to monitor health conditions, administer medications correctly, prevent infections, or follow care plans
• Basic Needs: Withholding adequate food, water, hygiene assistance, or maintaining clean living conditions
• Mobility: Not assisting residents with repositioning or movement, resulting in falls or debilitating pressure sores
• Social or Emotional: Leaving residents isolated, unanswered when calling for help, or ignored during daily activities

Neglect often happens in facilities experiencing understaffing, high turnover, or poor training. These problems are widespread across the long-term care industry and are common in Michigan.

Why This Distinction Matters

Recognizing whether a resident is suffering from abuse, neglect, or both can help:

• Guide medical evaluations
• Determine which agencies to notify
• Strengthen legal claims

Families should treat any warning sign seriously. Both abuse and neglect violate federal and state regulations and are grounds for legal action when a resident is harmed. If you think your loved one has been the victim of either one, call Fieger Law for a free case review today.

As mentioned above, many nursing homes in Michigan struggle with chronic staffing shortages. When facilities fail to hire and retain enough qualified employees, important tasks get overlooked, and residents pay the price.

Abuse and neglect often come from factors such as:

• Understaffing, which leaves employees overwhelmed and unable to provide adequate supervision
• Poor training, especially regarding mobility assistance, wound care, and dementia support
• High turnover, leading to communication breakdowns and inconsistent care routines
• Inadequate security, which can contribute to resident-on-resident aggression

Understanding why abuse occurs can help families like yours identify problems early and take action to protect their loved ones.

Family members often notice subtle red flags before obvious injuries occur. Pay close attention to:

• Sudden personality changes, including withdrawal, fearfulness, or anxiety around certain staff members
• Frequent infections such as UTIs, which may point to poor hygiene or inadequate catheter care
• Bedsores, bruises, or unexplained marks in various stages of healing
• Missed medical appointments, suggesting communication failures, or disorganization within the facility
• Rapid decline in mobility, which can happen without physical therapy or daily movement assistance
• Worsening chronic conditions due to missed care or medications

Documenting these signs, including taking photos and keeping written notes, is crucial if you need to report concerns or pursue legal action.

If you’re unsure whether your loved one is suffering abuse or not, they are unlikely to tell you—that’s a common effect of abuse. Call our nursing home abuse attorneys in Michigan and let us hear your story. We can help determine if your loved one is in danger and get them away from their abusers as quickly as possible.

Detroit is home to several hospitals where abused or neglected residents can receive emergency or follow-up care, including:

• Henry Ford Hospital
• DMC Detroit Receiving Hospital
• Corewell Health Dearborn Hospital
• DMC Sinai-Grace Hospital

Documenting injuries at one of these facilities can help establish the cause and severity. Hospitals often maintain detailed diagnostic imaging, fall assessments, and wound evaluations that become valuable evidence in legal claims.

If you believe your loved one is in immediate danger, call 911. For non-emergency concerns, Michigan provides these reporting channels:

• Adult Protective Services: Handles reports of suspected abuse, neglect, or exploitation of vulnerable adults
• Michigan Long-Term Care Ombudsman: Assists families with complaints, investigations, and disputes involving licensed care facilities
• CMS Nursing Home Compare Tool: Families can review health inspection reports, staffing levels, and documented violations through the CMS Care Compare database

In the Detroit area, several nursing homes have been cited in recent years for issues such as medication mismanagement, infection-control failures, and inadequate staffing levels. For example, the parent company of six Detroit-area facilities was fined $4.5 million in July 2025 for providing substandard care.

Even if you’re unsure whether abuse is occurring, reporting your concerns can start an investigation. Detroit residents deserve safe facilities where elderly people are treated with dignity. When those standards are violated, families need to be able to seek accountability.

For over 70 years, the medical malpractice lawyers at Fieger Law have fought and won compensation for hundreds of victims of nursing home abuse. If your family has suffered as the result of nursing home abuse, Fieger Law can help. Let us investigate your case today.