Legal Rights of Nursing Home Patients

Many individuals who are elderly enter nursing homes usually believing their quality of life and freedom is finished.

Every nursing home patient, however, has the right of dignity, freedom, and respect.

In 1987, in fact, our federal government passed a reform law for nursing homes as a measure to ensure legal rights of nursing home patients.

This law mandates that every nursing facility will promote and protect the rights of nursing home residents, while placing a bold emphasis on individual dignity and self-determination.

it is the legal right of one, as a resident in a nursing home, to be treated adequately with dignity and respect, and receive the required level of care, free of any mistreatment or abuse.

This treatment level can extend to an entitlement for medical health not to decline because of the provided level of care by the nursing home.

You have the absolute right to participate in handling your own treatment, to make certain that you receive adequate and appropriate healthcare management.


This means remaining informed completely of every change in the condition of your health, and any refusal to receive medication or treatments.

Thus, your participation can extend to the evaluation and assessment process, making decisions on treatment, planning care, and even being discharged.

Legal rights of nursing home patients can include refusal of chemical or physical restraints, and you have the ability to review at anytime your healthcare records.

You maintain every right to be free of any kind of sexual, mental, verbal, or physical abuse along with any misappropriation of money or property.

You have every right to avoid restraints that are physical, which include bed side rails, or medications to sedate utilized as a measure to discipline or punish you, or for the staff’s convenience.

The nursing home, in addition, cannot separate anyone from another individual against his or her will.

Whenever you believe you have been abandoned, neglected, abused, or mistreated, you are entitled to file a claim and take immediate legal action.

It is your legal right to maintain a role that is active in developing an adequate plan of care to manage your healthcare.

The nursing home is obligated to honor your needs and preferences. If the existence of a sensory impairment ensues, including challenges with mobility, hearing, or sight, you are entitled to assistance.

It is your legal right to choose your activities, healthcare, and schedules.

You are not to be coerced into use of a tube for feeding, unless for survival it is the last resort.

The nursing facility is required to assist an individual who is consuming food, which includes to improve your skills in swallowing, adapting therapies, or offer any devices to assist you, which include utensils which are easy for gripping.

The number of incidents are quite high, unfortunately, in relation to abuse and neglect where legal rights of nursing home patients are in violation.

Patients in nursing homes, as a result, can seek legal assistance to safeguard their rights, as offered by tort laws for personal injury.

Contact us for a free consultation or call Anzalone Law Firm PLLC, at: 603.548.3797.