Nursing Home Abuse, Elder Care and Personal Injury
You may have gone to great lengths and expense to find the right nursing home for a family member or a loved one. It is a traumatic and difficult decision to place someone in a nursing home so you expect, and they deserve, the best possible care. Unfortunately and often due to shortage of staff and worse (some residents have been choked, punched, and kicked by nursing home staff), the best nursing home care is not always readily available, and nursing home residents become victims of the "hidden crime": elder abuse.
Elder Care lawyers will review cases involving nursing home abuse and neglect resulting in injury or death. Elder abuse can include a large range of conduct including physical abuse such as slapping, shoving, burning and beating; emotional abuse such as name-calling, ignoring, intimidating, insulting and threatening; sexual abuse, including rape; financial abuse such as extortion, embezzlement and fraud; and caregiver abuse including withholding food, water, clothing, assistance with personal hygiene, and over or under medicating.
ELDER CARE ARTICLES AND INTERVIEWS Nursing Home Neglect Affects the Most Vulnerable
 Parkersburg, OH: While there are many forms of abuse, elder abuse is one of the worst because rarely is a client who suffers nursing home abuse in a position to defend themselves from nursing home negligence. [ Read More ]
Long Term Care Insurance Claims Denied, Denied, Denied
 Baltimore, MD: With seniors living further and further into retirement, it is important that they have a solid financial plan to ensure their needs are met. One tool for financial planning that many seniors consider is long term care insurance, which provides them with a means to pay for their care, should they need it. Unfortunately, long term care insurance benefits can be tricky to understand, and more and more seniors are finding that their claims are being denied on a questionable basis. [ Read More ]
Old People Deserve Justice Too
 Chicago, Ill: Attorney Matthew Passen knew he had his work cut out for him when he decided to step up to the plate for an elderly couple who had been injured in a car accident. He’d have to get a jury to understand that all his clients’ pain and suffering, the torn tissues, all the medical bills, prescription drugs, as well as the visits to doctors and hospitals over the last four years had nothing to do with their age. “It’s always difficult to get a jury to understand that elderly people’s injuries are due to the accident and not just things that go along with being old,” says Passen. [ Read More ]
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IN THE NEWS
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JUN-18-09: A woman in Florida has been arrested for abuse of a disabled nursing home resident, after witnesses reported seeing her pull the elderly man by the feet out of the nursing home's van. As a result the elderly gentleman hit his head on the floor of the van. If convicted, the woman could face up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $5,000. [WKRG NEWS: WOMAN ARRESTED FOR NURSING HOME ABUSE]
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JUN-15-09: The friend of now deceased Dora Haskins-Bond is suing Eldercare Inc, who own a nursing home in Bellevue, WV, alleging that Mrs. Haskins-Bond fell multiple times and sustained multiple fractures while living at the nursing home, and that the nursing home, knowing that she was at risk for falling and injury failed to provide adequate resources and monitoring for her to prevent her from falling, among other breaches of contract. [ST CLAIR RECORD: NURSING HOME ABUSE]
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JUN-05-09: The Azalea Court nursing home in West Palm Beach has been fined $16,000 by Florida state regulators after an elderly patient was found injured on the floor with maggots crawling out of his leg cast. A state inspection of the facility in April 2008 returned a grade of "J" for protecting its residents, which means that there was “immediate jeopardy” to resident’s health or safety for isolated violations, and early in 2009 the home was put on a state watch list. [PALM BEACH POST: MAGGOTS INFEST FLORIDA NURSING HOME MAN'S CAST]
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APR-24-09: The family of an elderly woman who died recently while in the care of a Parksburg nursing home in West Virginia is suing the facility alleging that the lack of care Eva Thelma Davis received ultimately contributed to her death. Specifically, the suit alleges Davis "suffered serious injuries from a pattern of poor care, neglect and abuse rendered by Ohio Valley Health Care and its staff." [WV RECORD: NURSING HOME ABUSE]
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APR-21-09: Two residents are suing a nursing home in Kentucky after claims an employee sexually abused them. Both claim a former employee sexually abused them at Bradford Heights. The employee at the center of the lawsuit pleaded guilty earlier this month to two counts of second-degree criminal abuse. Police say Rodriguez Gerrod Durr sexually assaulted the two residents last year.
[NEWS CHANNEL 5: NURSING HOME SEXUAL ABUSE]
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APR-01-09: The sister of a Washington woman, whose tracheal tube clogged with mucous causing oxygen loss and brain damage while she was a resident of Extendicare's Aldercrest Health & Rehabilitation Center in Edmonds, Wash., has filed suit against three wholly owned United States-based subsidiaries of Canadian Extendicare REIT. Norene McPherson's 49-year-old sister, Lea Ann, died a few months after the incident.
[FOX NEWS: EXTENDICARE NURSING HOME ABUSE]
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| Nursing Homes Many state agencies have reported incidents of negligent care of nursing home residents resulting in death. |
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the untold nursing home abuse
while talking to a nurse who works in a nursing home, i was shocked as she told of medical records being destroyed and rewritten.i asked what part of the record was to be redone, her answer "we are required to call the patients doctor or the on call m.d when certain conditions appear in the patient.
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| Nursing Homes Many state agencies have reported incidents of negligent care of nursing home residents resulting in death. |
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Nursing Home Abuse and Neglect
Elderly people—once independent and self-sufficient—now find themselves totally dependent on nursing home staff and administrators. These once-productive members of society, now in nursing homes, are most vulnerable.
Seven Types of Abuse:
- Physical abuse: infliction of pain or injury, including sexual abuse.
- Misuse of restraints: chemical or physical control of resident not in accordance with accepted medical practice or orders.
- Verbal/emotional abuse: demeaning statements, harassment, threats, humiliation or intimidation.
- Physical neglect: disregard for the necessities of daily living such as food, water, bathing and basic care.
- Medical neglect: lack of care for existing medical problems such as ignoring a necessary medical diet, not calling a physician when necessary, being unaware of potential side effects of medication or not taking action on a medical problem.
- Verbal/emotional neglect: not meeting the patients' verbal/emotional needs including disregarding patients' wishes, or restricting contact with family and friends.
- Personal property abuse: illegal or improper use of a resident's property (funds, property, assets) by another for personal gain.
Nursing Homes and the Law
 Most states have addressed the institutional abuse issue with laws that require doctors, nurses and other health care professionals to report suspected neglect to a designated state office. Laws further require nursing homes to investigate and report any abuse incidents that occur within their facility. Physicians, hospitals, nurses, therapists, aides, orderlies and administrators must provide adequate care, medical treatment and protection to the residents and patients in their facility.
By law, nursing homes must provide care to maintain the highest practicable physical, mental and psycho-social well-being of each resident.
Federal and state laws were designed to protect nursing home residents and the abuse or neglect that occurs there and in other assisted living facilities. Many states also require that nursing homes meet individual state standards relating to the type and quality of care required.
Failure to comply with these regulations has resulted in abuse that in turn caused illness, discomfort and death. This abuse is often referred to as "institutional abuse".
A California study found that only 23 percent of nursing homes in the state were compliant with federal regulations for quality of care—the rest (77 percent) practiced institutional abuse.
Institutional entities include skilled nursing facility (SNF) or homes, foster homes, group homes, and board and care facilities. Abusers may be staff members, other patients and even visitors
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Alarming Statistics
Abuse and even personal injury is often difficult to recognize; it is hidden by nursing home staff, or victims may be too frightened or incapacitated to report abuse. About 84 percent of abuse cases are unreported.
In 2001, nearly 1,600 nursing homes in the US (roughly one-third) were cited for abuse.
From January 1999 to January 2001 alone, more than 5,000 nursing homes were cited for 9,000 abuse violations. And with an increasing lack of staff, these violations are not expected to decrease anytime soon.
(More than twice as many nursing homes were cited for abuse in 2000 than in 1996.)
While the nursing home industry agrees there is a need for stiffer background checks, it disagrees that abuse is widespread.
Nursing home deaths are rarely detected by government inspectors, assessed by medical examiners, or investigated and prosecuted by law enforcement. Most deaths that were reported were preventable.
NHRA
The Nursing Home Reform Act (NHRA) has specific requirements that nursing homes must comply with in order to participate in federally reimbursed Medicare and Medicaid programs.
The NHRA states that a participating nursing home "must provide services and activities to attain and maintain the highest practicable physical, mental and psychosocial well-being of each resident in accordance with a written plan of care."
In addition, nursing home residents have a right to: "a dignified existence, self-determination, and communication with and access to persons and services inside and outside of the facility."
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Elder Abuse Legal Help
If a loved one has suffered abuse or neglect in a nursing home, please click the link below to send your complaint to a lawyer to evaluate your claim at no cost or obligation.
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