Last Updated: Aug 10, 2026
Read Time: 3 mins
There are many stories covered by the media that details horrific crimes against elderly nursing home residents. These stories detail how nursing home staff physically, emotionally, sexually, or financially abuse or neglect those very victims they are entrusted to care for. While all of these stories have helped to keep this issue in the forefront, resulting in laws being passed and lawsuits on behalf of abused and neglected victims and their families, a nursing home injury lawyer knows that there is another type of abuse that rarely gets reported in the media and that’s resident-on-resident abuse.
How Common Is Resident-on-Resident Abuse?
This type of abuse is more prevalent than many people realize. According to one study conducted by Cornell University, approximately 20 percent of nursing home residents were victims of aggressive or negative interactions with other residents in a one-month period.
Some of the types of incidents residents experienced included:
- Inappropriate invasion of privacy
- Inappropriate sexual behavior
- Physical abuse
- Verbal abuse
In most cases, the resident who is the abuser is typically able to walk but suffers from some kind of cognitive disability, such as dementia or other disorder that causes physical or verbal aggressive behaviors.
The study also found that in most cases, even if the bad behavior was witnessed by a nursing home staff member or the victim told the nursing home staff member about the incident, the staff member never took steps to report or stop the incident.
The most common behaviors of abuse cited by the researchers observing nursing home residents included:
- Attempting to gain sexual favors, exposing genitals, inappropriate touching of other residents, or other sexual incidents
- Biting, hitting, kicking, or other physical incidents
- Cursing, screaming, yelling, or other verbal incidents
- A resident entering another resident’s room without permission and going through their belongings
Protecting Residents from Abuse
There were several steps that nursing homes can take to protect residents from abuse, not just from nursing home staff but also from other residents. These steps include:
- Facilities should come up with a comprehensive care plan which outlines individualized resident care
- Facilities should identify the residents who are at risk of abusing and develop a care plan to monitor their movements
- Facilities should identify the causes of the abusive behavior and address those causes, as well as the behaviors
- Facilities should make sure there is enough staff to oversee the number of residents
- Facilities should ensure that all staff members are trained to recognize and stop abusive behavior on the part of residents
- Facilities should identify what environmental influences trigger abusive behaviors and take the steps to change or eliminate those influences
Contact a Nursing Home Lawyer for Legal Assistance
If you suspect your elderly loved one is being abused or neglected, please call an experienced attorney, like a nursing home injury lawyer from a law firm like Davis & Brusca, LLC.
Patterson Bray
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