Nursing Home Spotlight: Alden Town Manor

C2 fractureAlden Town Manor is a skilled nursing facility in Cicero, IL that was recently cited by the Illinois Department of Health following a March 30, 2010 survey at the facility. The focus of the survey was related to a March 6, 2010 incident in which a patient fell at the facility and subsequently died due to head trauma and cervical fractures.

An investigation into the incident revealed that Alden Town Manor failed to properly care for the patient in the following respects:

1. Assess a severely injured resident on the floor after a fall

2. Follow its own policy for residents with head injuries

3. Assess and develop interventions and re-evaluate the effectiveness of the interventions after a patient sustains a series of documented falls at the facility.

On March 6, 2010 staff responded to a loud noise in the room of an 83-year-old patient at the Alden Town Manor. When they arrived at the woman’s room they discovered the woman laying face-down on the floor, bleeding from an obvious cut on her head. When the staff arrived the woman was visibly injured but had a pulse.

Even though from the location of the wound and the profuse bleeding, a head injury was obvious, the staff at Alden Town Manor elected to move the injured patient from the floor to her bed without providing any stabilization for her neck.

A review of the patients hospital chart revealed that the woman sustained a fracture of the base of the Odentoid Process at C2. It is believed that the staff’s movement of the patient either caused or exacerbated the cervical fracture that contributed to her death.

In addition to violation of ‘nursing care 101’, Alden Town Manor staff violated their own policies and procedures for handling patients involved in a fall that specify staff are to complete a neurological assessment of each patient post-fall.

This incident is particularly disturbing in light of the fact that this patient had fallen at Alden two times prior and was further categorized as ‘high risk’ for falls according to her care plan.

As a result of the above occurrence, Alden Town Manor received a $30,000 fine from the Illinois Department of Health (IDPH).

If you have a loved one at Alden Town Manor and are concerned about the care they are receiving, we would honor the opportunity to speak with you. All consultations are confidential and our services are free if there is not a recovery for you.

For more information on nursing homes in Chicago look here. For laws related to Illinois nursing homes, look here.

Related:

Falls In Nursing Homes Are A Serious Threat To The Safety Of Many Patients

Even After Repeated Tragedies, Alden Wentworth Nursing Home Refuses To Hire Additional Staff To Assist Patients

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3 responses to “Nursing Home Spotlight: Alden Town Manor”

  1. David says:

    Stories like this are disturbing to read, but what’s missing here is whether there was a pattern of neglect or this was an isolated incident.

  2. ANGELA says:

    my mother was in alden recently and tooken to the emergency room by me and family because she keep complaing of there care and her problems were dehydrayion,merca infection, rashes bedsores on her feet and buttocks its a said place that i thought would be nice when showed around but never again i should have sued those bitches but hey god dont like ugly and aint to fund of the pretty .

  3. Esther Davis says:

    The owner Floyd A. Schlossberg is raking in millions from the over 30 nursing homes he owns in Illinois. Look up the Alden facilities in the Illinois Department of Public Health website. http://www.dph.illinois.gov/ click on nursing homes (a listing of) and look up Alden Town Manor. You can also look up nursing homes on http://www.medicare.gov and see how they are rated. Sometimes they are rated above what they really are. The cna and rn hours are inflated, because the facilities self report those numbers. Almost everyday, at Alden Town Manor, staff works understaffed, and when a worker calls off and is not replaced it makes matters even worse. For the families of any resident living there, keep a close eye on them, get yourself a good lawyer if your loved one develops a pressure sore or dies prematurely. Thank the good certified nursing assistants and the good nurses who care for you loved ones. They don’t make the staffing decisions, they can’t order better food nor order more linen, so don’t put the blame on them. Put the blame on the greedy owner and his gang (the managers). And trust me, have not met many managers who are decent human beings there. They seem all to come from the hells of Alden Academy, where they are tought to be greedy and heartless. People like that have no place in the health care field. And also don’t forget to blame the government for letting these for-profit companies run nursing homes which are basically ripping-off taxpayers, the sick, and the elderly. If the nursing were run by the State we wouldnt see so many nursing homes being ran with less staff, less supplies, and in worse conditions than most dog kennels.

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