Abuse, mistreatment, and neglect

Abuse and mistreatment mean treating somebody else with cruelty or violence on purpose and often repeatedly. Abuse is a violation of the criminal law; therefore, it’s punishable.

Now, abuse can involve actively doing something bad to harm another person, but it can also involve failing to do something good, like giving proper care to someone that needs you to meet their basic needs, such as nourishment, hydration, or toileting needs, and this is also known as neglect.

A type of neglect is abandonment, which means withdrawing help or care from someone who needs it. As a nursing assistant, leaving your facility before the end of your shift without permission or sleeping at work instead of providing care are examples of abandonment.

It can seem hard to imagine that healthcare workers who choose to come to work each day and care for others are at risk for abusing their own clients.

However, although there is no excuse for any type of abuse, mistreatment, or neglect, situations where a client requires a great deal of care can lead to exhaustion, frustration, and potential abuse.

As a nursing assistant, if you ever find yourself overwhelmed with your care responsibilities, remember to reach out to your supervisor to find the support you need to continue providing safe, quality care to your clients.

The main types of abuse include physical, psychological, sexual, and financial abuse. Physical abuse involves using force to cause physical harm or pain to someone else’s body.

This includes hitting, slapping, pushing, pinching, or even shaking a client. Signs of physical abuse include bruising; red marks on the skin; fractures; or even broken objects, like eyeglasses.

On the other hand, psychological abuse, also called emotional abuse, involves using words or actions that cause emotional harm or fear, such as treating clients without respect, insulting or humiliating them, or threatening them with physical harm or abandonment.

Signs of psychological abuse include changes in a client’s behavior, such as anxiety, depression, or even apathy. Sexual abuse can be physical or psychological and involves forcing someone to unwanted sexual contact, making inappropriate comments, touching a client inappropriately, harassing them, or taking nude photos or videos of the person.

Signs of sexual abuse include bruising or skin marks on intimate body areas, like breasts or genitals, and unexplained bleeding from the vagina or anus.

Finally, financial abuse involves stealing, misusing, or exploiting another person’s resources, like money or personal possessions.

This includes stealing or taking something without your client’s permission, forging their signature on any documents or checks, and tricking or blackmailing clients.

Keep in mind that, even if a client willingly offers you money or gifts, you shouldn’t accept them as it can be considered financial abuse. Make sure that you are familiar with your facility’s policies regarding this matter.

Now, in some challenging care situations, involuntary seclusion or restraints are sometimes needed temporarily as a last resort to keep a client as well as people around them safe.

By law, everyone has the right of freedom from involuntary seclusion and restraints that are not medically necessary as they can be considered forms of abuse.

Involuntary seclusion means keeping a client isolated in a specific area or room and restricting their ability to move about freely. Sometimes, separating a client from other clients is part of the plan of care.