By Nursing Home Law Center
Bedsores are truly a horrific condition impacting nursing home patients in all demographics. As a lawyer on the front lines of these cases, I am continually dumbfounded by the lack of basic precautions in place at many facilities to prevent these potentially deadly wounds from developing in the first place.
After all, it’s not like bed sores develop due to a medical complication or error. Rather, bedsores (or interchangeably used with the terms: pressure sores, pressure ulcers or decubitus ulcers) are almost always indicative of a facility that has grossly neglected their patients by failing to tend to basic needs like regularly moving the patient or keeping them clean and dry.
A new study conducted by the University of Cincinnati College of Nursing (Ohio) is looking to see if the implementation of a reminder-system for the staff to move and re-position patients on a regular basis can help in the reducing the number of patients who acquire pressure sores during their admission.
Under the year-long pilot program, music plays for one or two minutes every two-hours for a 12-hour period. All staff at the facilities – from maintenance workers to administrators get involved to assist in moving immobile patients or remind relatively able-bodied patients to get up and move around.
Through the course of the pilot program, none of the patients at the facilities involved have developed bedsores.
When I read stories such as this, I am reminded how a little effort on the part of nursing homes can go a long way towards preventing this painful and potentially life-threatening medical condition.
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