Suspicious of Nursing Home Neglect? Try a Camera

Last Updated: September 15, 2026

A camera in your mother’s room is lawful once the state consent form is signed and given to the facility. One limit: a home that houses residents with dementia may allow cameras only in a building or wing dedicated entirely to dementia care. Ask the home first. Any roommate must consent; the facility posts signs and may not retaliate.

Your mother came to the facility three months ago on her own feet. She was sharp, talked to you almost daily, and complained about nothing. Last week you walked in and found her in her room at 2 p.m., unwashed, wearing stained clothes. Her call light was on. She had no idea what day it was.

You asked the nurse why your mother hadn’t been helped with hygiene that morning. The nurse shrugged and said they’d been busy. When you asked for that day’s care notes, you got a vague entry that said “resident rested comfortably.”

Something is wrong. You can feel it. But you can’t prove it.

Some families in your position turn to a camera in the resident’s own room, recording what happens when you are not there. Illinois has had a statute for exactly that since January 1, 2016, the Authorized Electronic Monitoring in Long-Term Care Facilities Act. Read it before you buy anything. One limit in the Act decides whether a camera can go in at all. The consent steps decide when it starts and whether it stays on.

Why families consider it

Neglect in nursing homes is hard to see from outside the room. A resident with dementia may have trouble describing what happened during the day, and how much she can tell you varies by person and by stage. The chart is written by the same staff whose care is in question.

You notice the warning signs in pieces. A bruise that no one can explain. Your mother losing ten pounds in two months. She’s withdrawn around one particular aide. She gets infections repeatedly. Her pressure sores are getting worse, not better, even though the care plan promises wound care twice a day.

A camera can show you what’s actually happening in that room. It can reveal whether staff members are checking on your mother regularly. Whether they’re handling her gently during transfers. Whether they’re responding to her call light. Whether someone is stealing her food or neglecting her personal hygiene.

Video from a resident’s room shows what happened in front of the camera, including the hours when no family member was there, whether or not anyone wrote it in the chart. Illinois lets a resident, or the person who may consent for the resident, record that lawfully in the rooms where the Act allows it, and the steps below are how.

Video is hard to argue with.

The legal reality in Illinois

Illinois has a specific statute for this, and the order of its steps matters. Under 210 ILCS 32/10 a resident may conduct electronic monitoring of the resident’s own room with a fixed video camera, an audio recorder, or both. The Act covers the resident’s own room. It does not require cameras in hallways, dining rooms or other common areas. Keep the camera out of a shared bathroom.

One limit sits in the Act itself. A facility that houses residents with dementia may allow monitoring devices only in rooms in a building, or a wing of a building, dedicated entirely to dementia care (210 ILCS 32/10(c)). The limit depends on the home, whether or not your mother has dementia. In a home that mixes residents with and without dementia and has no dedicated dementia building or wing, the Act does not permit a room camera for any resident. Before you buy a camera, ask the administrator in writing whether the home houses residents with dementia. If it does, ask whether your mother’s room is in a building or wing dedicated entirely to dementia care. The Illinois Department of Public Health’s rule repeats the limit (77 Ill. Adm. Code 389.110). As of 2026 we have found no published court decision applying this limit, so we state the limit as the statute does and read nothing more into it.

Start with audio. The Act’s definition of a monitoring device includes an audio recorder, so audio is allowed when you follow the Act’s consent process. The resident or the roommate can make no audio a condition of consent, and that condition is written on the form (210 ILCS 32/20). The Illinois eavesdropping law, 720 ILCS 5/14-2, is what applies to a recording made outside that process.

Who signs. The resident signs the Illinois Department of Public Health’s notification and consent form, or her court-appointed plenary guardian does, or a parent if the resident is under 18 (210 ILCS 32/15). If your mother’s physician finds that she cannot understand what monitoring means, and she has not objected to it, the Act names who may consent for her, in this order:

the agent named in her health care power of attorney;
the person the Nursing Home Care Act calls her resident’s representative;
her spouse;
her parent;
an adult child who has the other adult children’s written consent to decide;
an adult brother or sister who has the other siblings’ written consent.

Before anyone other than her plenary guardian signs for her, she has to be asked, in front of a facility employee, whether she wants the monitoring.

If your mother has a roommate, the roommate signs the same form before monitoring starts, or the person allowed to consent for the roommate does, in the same order. The resident or a roommate can set conditions, including no audio. If the roommate says no, monitoring cannot start in that room. The facility then has to try to accommodate your mother, and it meets that duty by offering to move either resident to another shared room that is open at the time; if no room is open, it must look again every two weeks. A private room chosen to make the camera possible is paid at the private room rate. A new roommate has to consent before recording resumes; if the new roommate refuses and the device is not removed, the facility turns it off. A roommate or the resident can withdraw consent at any time.

The Nursing Home Care Act backs this up. Under 210 ILCS 45/3-318, a facility may not intentionally retaliate or discriminate against a resident for consenting to monitoring, and it may not prevent the installation or use of a device once it has the completed notice and consent form.

Before you install anything, talk with a lawyer. The consent order, the roommate’s signature and the conditions written on the form are where families make mistakes, and the Act’s protections depend on getting them right.

What does the facility have to do once it has your form?

Under the Act the facility knows before the camera goes in: monitoring may begin only after the completed notice and consent form has been given to it.

A facility may raise staff privacy or other residents’ privacy. The Act settles the roommate question through the roommate’s consent, and it sets the facility’s own duties. Once the form is on file, the facility must post a sign at every building entrance visitors use saying that some residents’ rooms may be monitored electronically, and a sign at your mother’s door saying the room is electronically monitored (210 ILCS 32/30). The facility installs and maintains those signs. The resident pays for the device, its installation, upkeep and removal, and the facility may not charge her for the electricity it uses (210 ILCS 32/25).

If a facility punishes your mother for the camera, that is the retaliation 210 ILCS 45/3-318 prohibits. Write down what happened and when, and tell your lawyer.

A camera changes the relationship with the staff, and under the Act it is an open step: the facility has your form, the signs go up, and the device itself sits where it can be seen, because the Act requires a conspicuously visible spot in the room. Some families start with a care conference and a written complaint to the administrator and turn to a camera when those do not work; families who already suspect neglect want the camera in place first. The Act’s steps are the same either way.

What to do if the camera shows what you fear

If your camera captures abuse or neglect, keep the recording for those who need it: the state investigator, the police, and your lawyer. Posting it or texting it around hands control of it to other people.

First, get your mother safe. If she is in danger right now, call 911. Then make the official report to the Illinois Department of Public Health’s nursing home complaint line, and to the police if what you saw is a crime.

Next, preserve the footage. Back it up in more than one place, leave the original unedited, and share it only with the people named above. Get it to a lawyer before you do anything else with it.

A lawyer can tell you how to get it to the investigators, what it shows and what it leaves out, and how to keep it intact for a case. A recording that has been passed around, clipped or posted invites questions about what happened to it before anyone in authority saw it.

Sometimes cameras confirm good care

You will install the camera expecting to catch abuse. Then you watch it and see something different: an aide who spends time with your mother, helps with her hair and laughs with her, and nurses who check on her through the shift.

That happens too. And in those cases, the camera gives you peace of mind and lets you trust the facility again.

The goal is clarity.

When you should call a lawyer instead of installing a camera

Some situations are too serious to wait for video evidence.

If your mother has developed a pressure injury that was not there when she was admitted, the evidence is in her chart: the skin assessments, the repositioning schedule in her own care plan, and the wound care notes. A pressure injury does not by itself prove neglect in Illinois. Your family has to show what the facility failed to do and that the failure caused the wound, and that usually takes a nurse or physician who reviews the chart. A lawyer can request the chart now.

Same if she’s suffered a serious unexplained injury. Or if you see signs of physical assault. Or if she’s become severely dehydrated or malnourished. Or if staff members are being evasive about showing you her medical records. Or if the facility is constantly understaffed and residents are going without care.

In those cases the harm is happening now. A lawyer can request her records, send the facility a letter demanding that it preserve evidence, file a complaint with the Illinois Department of Public Health, and help you move her.

Understaffing cases come down to numbers: a facility that admitted more residents than it had staff to care for, and management that knew it.

A camera records one room. A lawsuit reaches the staffing records, the budgets and the management decisions behind it.

The bottom line

You should be able to trust that your mother is cared for without a camera in her room. If the camera is what it takes, the Nursing Home Care Act forbids punishing her for it.

If you are at that point, suspecting something you cannot yet prove, call before you buy the camera. You do not need proof, the chart or the form in hand to call. Robert Parker can go through the consent form with you, tell you who in your family may sign it, and tell you what to do with what the camera shows.

Peoria personal injury lawyer Robert Parker takes nursing home neglect and abuse claims and personally handles every case the firm accepts. Call 309-673-0069.

Need a lawyer? This article is part of our Peoria Nursing Home Injury Lawyer practice area. Call Parker & Parker at 309-673-0069 for a free consultation.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I put a camera in my mother’s nursing home room in Illinois?

Yes, with one limit that depends on the home. Under 210 ILCS 32/10 a resident, or the person the Act allows to consent for the resident, may place a fixed video camera, an audio recorder, or both in the resident’s own room. Monitoring may begin only after the state consent form is signed by the resident and any roommate and given to the facility. One limit: a facility that houses residents with dementia may allow the devices only in rooms in a building or wing dedicated entirely to dementia care (210 ILCS 32/10(c)). In a home that mixes residents with and without dementia and has no dedicated dementia building or wing, the Act does not permit a room camera for any resident. Ask the home in writing before you buy one.

Who can sign the Illinois consent form if my mother has dementia?

First check whether the Act allows a camera in her room. A home that houses residents with dementia may allow a camera only in rooms in a building or wing dedicated entirely to dementia care (210 ILCS 32/10(c)). Ask the administrator in writing whether her room is in such a building or wing. If it is, she signs the form herself if she can understand what monitoring means. Her court-appointed plenary guardian can also sign. Without a guardian, someone else may sign for her only after her physician finds that she cannot understand what monitoring means, and she must not have objected. Before anyone but her guardian signs for her, she is asked in front of a facility employee whether she wants the monitoring. Then the Act names who may sign for her, in this order: the agent named in her health care power of attorney, then the person the Nursing Home Care Act calls her resident’s representative. After those come her spouse, then her parent, then an adult child with the other adult children’s written consent, then an adult sibling with the other siblings’ written consent (210 ILCS 32/15).

Do I have to tell the nursing home about the camera?

Yes. Monitoring may begin only after the completed notification and consent form has been given to the facility (210 ILCS 32/20), and the facility then posts a sign at the building entrances and at the door of the room.

What happens if the roommate refuses in an Illinois nursing home?

Monitoring cannot start in that room. The facility has to try to accommodate your mother, which it does by offering to move either resident to another shared room that is open; if none is open it must look again every two weeks, and a private room chosen for the camera is paid at the private room rate.

Is audio recording legal in an Illinois nursing home room?

Yes, when it is done through the Act’s consent process. The resident or the roommate can make no audio a condition of consent. A recording made outside that process is where the Illinois eavesdropping law, 720 ILCS 5/14-2, applies.

Can an Illinois nursing home retaliate or make my mother take the camera down?

Not for consenting to monitoring. Under 210 ILCS 45/3-318 a facility may not intentionally retaliate or discriminate against a resident for consenting to monitoring, and it may not prevent installation or use of the device once it has the completed form. The facility must post the required signs and may not charge for the electricity the device uses (210 ILCS 32/25).