Poor hygiene of a nursing home resident often occurs as a result of neglect, which means that the nursing home nurses and other staff members are not performing their duty to help the nursing home maintain good personal hygiene through daily bathing, assistance using the restroom, help with self-grooming (like doing hair, shaving, etc.), changing of soiled undergarments, changing into fresh clothing, brushing of the teeth, etc.

Poor hygiene is rarely an intentional consequence of nursing home professional’s actions. Instead, poor resident hygiene often occurs because of:

• A poor staff to patient ratio, with nursing home staff members simply not having enough time to bathe residents or provide them with other hygienic care that they need; and
• Poor training or nursing home procedures in place, such as an adequate system of documenting what hygienic care the patient has already received that day, and poor communication between staff members, especially during shift changes.

In some cases, poor hygiene may occur because a nursing home does not have the proper tools in place to assist with hygiene, such as an adequate number of roll-in showers (for wheelchairs) or patient lifts that can be used to safely move a patient.