Nursing home cases typically involve abuse or neglect. Abuse cases involve injurious harm to long-term residents by caregivers or fellow patients. Neglect cases typically arise out of the failure to monitor and treat medical conditions, failure to institute proper fall precautions, elopement (i.e., when patients with dementia wander), and failure to maintain skin integrity. We have seen [...]
A nursing home owes a duty to protect elderly patients from a variety of hazards, including falls, C. Diff. infections, assault by employees or other patients, dehydration, malnutrition and bed sores, to name a few. Another hazard, called elopement, involves special considerations. Elopement occurs when an impaired patient wanders away from supervision in the nursing home setting. [...]
Most nursing home and hospital beds come equipped with adjustable bed rails, which can be put up to prevent patients from falling out of bed. However, poor design or misuse of bed rails can lead to injury or death, according to this article in the New York Times. According to the article, about 150 deaths occurred [...]
Patients fall in the nursing home and hospital frequently. According to published statistics, 2% of all hospital admissions are complicated by injuries from falls. The risk of falls is higher in nursing homes and hospital due to patients being weak, elderly or infirm or due to the use of medications. Nursing care plans should include a fall [...]
Nursing homes are inspected on a regular basis. Depending on the outcome of a given inspection, you or your loved ones may be at increased risk of experiencing avoidable injuries, if the nursing home has failed to demonstrate competency in a given area of patient care and has failed to comply with state and national [...]