Abstract
Nursing care for older patients is for the nursing staff usually more demanding physically, mentally and in terms of time, because the patients are mostly polymorbid with more or less obvious manifestations of old age, motoric restrictions and variedly serious impairment of sensory or mental functions. The task of nursing staff is to provide care to these elderly patients at an appropriate level and with a professional attitude, which takes into account the needs of the patients and at the same time respects their personality, dignity and human rights.
The goal of our contribution was to find out if the human rights and dignity of elderly patients, especially in relation to their age, are being violated. To trace down he most frequent typical malpractice and inappropriate behaviour in the relationship of nursing staff to elderly patients, to define displays of disparaging of the personality of elderly patients and to describe their seriousness from the viewpoint of law and ethical codices.