About the Nursing Home Law Center

The focus of the Nursing Home Law Center is to provide information to families so they can make informed decisions about their loved ones. Frequently, this means reporting on issues involving medical and legal developments in the area of nursing home negligence.

We invite you to browse the material in this ‘news’ section, where we have a virtual encyclopedia related to skilled nursing facilities and elder care.

Should you have any questions about this content or a situation involving a family member, please contact us. All consultations are free and confidential.

Our attorneys have experience representing families across the United States in matters involving abuse and neglect. Put our expertise to work for you.

Post Fall Care and Nursing HomesNursing homes were considered a safe haven for the elderly and people did not hesitate in sending their loved ones to nursing homes in the past. However, the scenario has changed to a great extent. What was once a safe and secure haven has now become a dangerous place. Nursing homes have been severely criticized for their patient care and services, especially for the way the staff handles patients after they experience a serious fall. The nurses and other staff members fail to take notice of the patients if they fall from a height and do not report the incident on time to the doctors. This often results in the death of the patient and the authorities of the nursing home are left with nothing to say.

Statistics of fall in Nursing Homes

Cases of patients falling in nursing homes are escalating at an increasing speed every year. Around 1800 elderly patients inhabiting different nursing homes die every year due to grave injuries that result from falling on the floor. Around 10%-20% of all the falls result in stern injuries; these injuries include fractures in the leg, hip and serious brain injuries that often lead to brain disorders. Fractures account for about 2%-6% of the total injuries that are reported.

How Do You Prevent Nursing Home AbuseWhen a family makes the difficult decision to place their loved one in the care of a nursing home, they hope the provided caregivers will be as loving and responsible as possible. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Many elders are abused in nursing homes due to their age and physical frailty. Often, this abuse is in the form of neglect. In order to make sure your family doesn’t fall prey to nursing home abuse, look for the 5 warning signs below.

Look For Bruises, Pressure Marks, And Broken Bones

In the unfortunate event that physical violence is being used against the elderly, there will often be a mark. One place to look is one the wrists and ankles to determine if unnecessary confinements are being used. Anytime your elderly family encounters a broken bone, make sure to fully understand what happened to ensure it was not abuse such as hitting or shoving that led to it.

What Happens Behind Closed DoorsNursing homes are supposed to be a comfortable and safe haven for elderly individuals who are suffering from illnesses and require special medical attention. Families of the elderly people who reside in nursing homes want to be satisfied with the care their loved one is receiving and want the best for their elderly family members.

When a family member makes the difficult decision of admitting their elderly loved one into a nursing home, they want to feel content that they are making the best decision for them.

The Issues with Nursing Homes

Fines Show Lack of Patient CaringNursing homes are increasingly becoming a place of distrust and oversight, rather than what they were created to be, a safe and comfortable home for the elderly.

Recently, many nursing homes have been fined for their oversight of patients and the lack of care of patients. Elderly individuals are admitted to nursing homes in the hopes that they will be cared for with the best resources. However, most often this is not what elderly patients receive. In contrast, they are neglected and given very little attention.

Need to oversee fragile patients

Nursing Home Falls and Precautions Falls among the elderly contribute to roughly 1,800 deaths each year and statistics are showing that the problem is greater in nursing homes than anywhere else. Only 5% of the population above the age of 65 lives in nursing homes, but falls in nursing homes account for 20% of the falls that occur nationwide, regardless of location.

Many of the falls that happen in nursing home happen as a result of increased frailty among the members that live under assisted care. These falls can be easily prevented, however, by evaluating the contributing factors to falls in the elderly and adjusting the care given to patients in nursing homes accordingly.

Medications contributing to poor balance

Sexual Abuse in Nursing HomesWhen we think about nursing home abuse, the first things that come to mind are incidents of neglect that lead to complications such as malnourishment, dehydration and bed sores. We don’t want to imagine the possibility that our loved ones could be the victims of assault or sexual abuse. The amount of incidents that are being reported that related to alleged sexual abuse in nursing homes is alarming, however, and despite our best efforts to deny it, sexual abuse is a growing problem in nursing homes.

High Rate of Incidents, Low Rate of Arrest

Between the years of 2007 and 2010, in Chicago, IL, there were eighty-six reported incidents that involved some form of sexual abuse. Of those eighty-six reports, only a single incident led to an arrest. More surprising was the fact that there were nine incidents that happened in nursing homes in Chicago that were never reported to the police and another incident which was reported months after the fact. Nursing homes are required by law to report cases of criminal sexual assault immediately.

Inattentive Care Shown in Pressure SoresDespite the perception that pressure sores, also known as bedsores, shouldn’t be a common problem in urban areas, pressure sore lawsuit filings in large, modern cities– such as Chicago— are more common than you may think. Do not allow yourself to be misled if a facility or caregiver insists that the development of pressure sores is just an inevitable fact of life and growing old. The truth of the matter is that pressure sores develop very slowly over time and the presence of stage four pressure sores is usually the result of inattentive caregivers over a long-term period.

Treatment of Early Stage Pressure Sores Necessary to Prevent Complications Down the Road

To understand the severity of neglect that is required in order to allow an elderly patient to develop stage four pressure sores, we need to understand how pressure sores develop and how they can be prevented or treated in their early stages. When a patient is confined to a wheelchair or hospital bed, continued pressure to the joints and areas of the body that have continued contact with the hard surface create pressure that limits the circulation to the affected area. Because the blood is cut off to the area, the cells are deprived of much needed oxygen and begin to slowly die off. This process takes time to occur and is typically exhibited in four different stages.

Patients are the Victims of Nursing Home careSomeone once told me that a society should be judged on how well it takes care of its poor, its veterans and its elderly. We are currently failing when it comes to the overall regard that we have for the elderly in our society. After making severe cuts to the Medicare/Medicaid system and other cuts that have specifically targeted nursing homes and the elderly, Republican lawmakers wish to enact even more cuts— while so many nursing homes remain understaffed. We’ve taken so much already from our elderly and need to ask how much more they should be forced to pay while others receive breaks or avoid responsibility because of loopholes that allow them to.

Cuts Already Enacted

Since 2009, nursing home care has been the target of cuts on both a state and national level. Here are the cuts we have seen in the last three years so far and their impact on nursing care.

 Large-For-Profit-Nursing-Home-Chains-Declining-Levels-of-Care-Increases-In-Patient -Injury The entire purpose of any for-profit corporation is to make money and to continuously implement new strategies that will increase profit and reduce expenses. How far is too far though when a company puts its own needs above those of the people it serves? The ten largest for-profit nursing care companies were put to the test last year in a study that compared their care to that of government agencies and not-for-profit homes. Researchers were alarmed at just how stark the contrast was between nursing facilities that existed to make a profit and those that didn’t— and the results did not favor the for-profit homes.

Ten Nursing Home Companies that Only Care About Profit 

After evaluating multiple government sponsored nursing homes and not-for-profit care facilities and comparing the results to the following companies, it was determined that the level of care shown by these companies failed to equal the care that patients received in homes that were not out for financial gain. Each of these companies failed to live up to their not-for-profit counterparts’ levels of care.

Elderly Feeding Tubes is Hard to RegulateOne of the most controversial medical practices impacting patients of all ages is the use of feeding tubes. These medical devices are often used as a means to provide nutrition and hydration to residents who are unable to consume food on their own. Increasingly, however, nursing homes are resorting to the use of feeding tubes as a way to provide nutrition to residents. The issue is that families of nursing home residents are often not well-informed about the risks associated with the use of feeding tubes.

The Harmful Effects of Feeding Tubes

When a stomach tube is implanted in an individual, it can cause serious, harmful effects. Only in recent years have medical studies started to address the emotional impact that feeding tubes have on patients. Residents may suffer from depression and anxiety when they receive feeding tubes. They can experience sadness in realizing that they have lost a major functionality of the human body.

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