Elder Malnutrition

[Page updated: 04-06-2021] – How do you square it off? If you have a great health care provider, how could your kin be suffering malnutrition? After all, an elder abuse lawyer in California will tell you good care won’t include malnutrition.

Table of Contents:

• Identifying Malnutrition
• Duties of Nursing Homes – Identifying Malnutrition

When an elderly family member is in a Los Angeles nursing home, we expect them well-fed and happy. Families assume their aged kin will get the proper care.

After all, nursing care is expensive, but money doesn’t mean you will receive adequate care. Nursing homes, ironically, are often run by people who take a Hippocratic Oath. Each nursing home resident deserves personal care from their nursing care provider.

• Poor feeding or inferior feeding happens.
• The nursing home failing to detect or address malnutrition is negligent.

IMPORTANT: When you see any senior suffering rapid weight loss, you should see red flags raised immediately in your mind’s eye. For you to better understand what to look for, here are some signs and symptoms of elder malnutrition from a personal injury attorney’s perspective.

What Are Some Classic Symptoms Of Elderly Malnutrition?

Signs of malnutrition in seniors should become immediately recognized by trained nursing home employees. Family members will usually identify malnutrition with younger people, but as loved ones age, non medically trained family members may think these symptoms are a typical sign of the aging process instead of neglect. After all, poor eating can be a regular part of human aging.

• But alas, caregivers have a responsibility to prevent starvation whenever possible.
• Also, they are obligated to inform the family of the problem and cause when unavoidable.

Hence, if this is a hidden, unreported condition, we have a problem.

• Red flags come up when the caretaker fails to alert the family. So this is a source of severe trust and medical concern.
• Failing to tell the family can mean that the malnutrition is not due to a medical condition in the older adult.
• Covering it up in and of itself can be evidence of a state of neglect. So the caretakers need to be accountable for this inaction. After all, they must protect the older person’s health and well-being.

Finally, your question will become “who is responsible?”

Are Nursing Care Facilities Required to Assess Nutrition?

Yes, they are! Nursing homes must provide good elder and dependent care. Mostly, this includes assessing the nutrition of each of their residents. So nursing homes must determine the nutritional needs of their inhabitants. Finally, they must provide healthy meals and snacks.

Elderly malnutrition can have multiple causes.

These can range from:

• Diminished appetite,
• Lack of healthy food.

Nursing home malnutrition is a severe concern of a nursing home setting because good elder and dependent adult care will never include malnutrition. So if your loved one’s condition is not for medical reasons or the natural aging process, providers are on the hook for your money damages. Nursing abuse lawyers can force nursing homes to pay you for their indiscretions. But you must first contact our superior Los Angeles elderly abuse attorneys. 

• The victims attending facility failing to provide proper supervision of residents is unlawful. When facilities provide sub-par nutritional services, they invite judicial and administrative review and oversight of their clinics.

We discussed the signs and symptoms as evidence of abuse and neglect in a fostering lodging or as a sign of reckless abandonment. We must hold people watching over patients financially accountable when they starve seniors unless some medical reason exists. Our skilled and experienced attorneys assist neglected families of elder malnutrition in obtaining compensatory money damages from negligent caregivers and nursing facilities in California.

Ehline Law Firm’s California personal injury attorneys can be reached at (213) 596-9642 or use our convenient, online contact form today. Our superior Los Angeles personal injury lawyers are available 24-hours per day, seven days per week, to discuss your malnutrition claims, and we offer free legal advice in a confidential setting.