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Recent Blog Posts
What is Considered a “Wrongful Death” in a Nursing Home?
Nursing home facilities and other long-term care facilities take care of our loved ones when they can no longer take care of themselves. Many nursing home residents have dementia, heart disease, and other age-related illnesses that will eventually take their life. However, some nursing home residents pass away prematurely because of substandard care in the nursing home. If your loved one died in a nursing home because of abuse or neglect, you may be able to hold the facility accountable through a wrongful death claim.
Nursing Home Resident Deaths Caused By Neglect or Abuse
Staff in a nursing home facility have an obligation to provide skilled care to residents. Sadly, some nursing homes fail to meet the expectations anticipated by loved ones and required by Illinois law. Nursing home neglect or abuse can take many forms and may result in serious injury or death of a resident.
Negligent Hiring Can Lead to Abuse of Nursing Home Residents
Nursing homes should be places of safety and refuge for elderly and disabled people. Sadly, many nursing homes do not live up to these standards. Many different issues can lead to nursing home neglect and abuse. Negligent hiring policies, insufficient vetting of applicants, and insufficient training are three serious issues that increase the chances of a nursing home employee harming a resident.
Substandard Hiring Practices Can Lead to Abuse of Nursing Home Residents
Nursing home employees have the important job of caring for our loved ones when they can no longer care for themselves. Residents in a nursing home are often frail and in ill health. Many suffer from Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, and other cognitive diseases. Residents may not always be able to advocate for themselves and this puts them in a very vulnerable position. Consequently, the need for responsible, competent, compassionate staff can hardly be overstated.
Nursing Home Residents With Undiagnosed Dementia May Be Vulnerable to Abuse and Neglect
With the consent and involvement of the person in question, a family must often make the difficult decision to move a parent, grandparent, or other loved one into an Illinois nursing home. People may move into nursing homes for many reasons, including complex health problems that require consistent monitoring and assistance. Families may not have the knowledge or availability to provide care for an elderly loved one and a residential care facility may be the best option.
Because residents of nursing homes are generally elderly and often in poor health, additional conditions can be expected to appear during their stay. Nursing home staff should be alert and prepared to notice and diagnose further conditions, including physical injuries and mental deterioration. But when nursing home staff is undertrained, overworked, or negligent, serious conditions like Alzheimer’s and other neurological disorders may go undiagnosed. Failure to diagnose serious neurological conditions can lead to patients getting abused, wandering away, getting seriously hurt, and even dying.
Undetected Sepsis Presents a Lethal Danger to Illinois Nursing Home Residents
Elderly residents of nursing home facilities often struggle with conditions that make it difficult to communicate. Dementia, confusion, weakened muscles in the mouth and throat, and illness or exhaustion can all challenge a patient’s ability to speak clearly and articulate what they are feeling. One unfortunate consequence of this is that patients may be suffering from pain or fever and be unable to let their caregivers know.
Nursing home staff must be acutely aware of their patients’ condition and be on the alert for signs that something may be amiss. But when staff are overworked, undertrained, or if the nursing home’s resident-to-staff ratio is too high, serious problems may be left unnoticed. One particularly dangerous risk is an infection that becomes septic. Even if an infection is known, it can worsen and spread, presenting a potentially lethal danger to a resident. Recognizing and treating sepsis early is essential for preventing serious health consequences, up to and including death.
What Can I Do if I Think Nursing Home Staff May Be Stealing My Parent’s Money?
The decision to place a parent in an Illinois nursing home or assisted living center can be a difficult and heartbreaking choice, especially if your parent is unhappy about it or suffers from dementia and does not fully understand the situation. Yet many aging adults are unable to care for themselves and certain health conditions can require the constant supervision and assistance of healthcare professionals, something that few adult children are equipped to provide on their own.
Many families, therefore, decide to put their trust in nursing home staff and carefully select a facility where their parent or loved one will feel at home. Unfortunately, although it may be difficult to contemplate such a situation, nursing home staff do not always provide residents with the appropriate standard of care and even sometimes engage in elder abuse and neglect. One common form of elder abuse is financial abuse. If you think nursing home staff - or another resident - may be stealing from your parent, read on.
My Parent in an Illinois Nursing Home Has Strange Bruises. What Should I Do?
As our bodies age, the internal and external tissues become more fragile and can get damaged more easily. When compounded with mobility issues, bruising and other superficial injuries are often commonly seen on elderly Illinois nursing home patients, even when they receive the best care. However, persistent bruises that seem to be in odd places may be a sign that something more serious is going on.
While it is hard to imagine someone deliberately abusing an elderly nursing home resident, such unfortunate incidents do happen. It is important for friends and family members who have a loved one in a residential care facility to be on the alert for strange or suspicious bruising, fractures, or other unexplained injuries. If you are worried that your loved one may be suffering from physical abuse, it is important to take action right away.
When is it Safe and Reasonable to Restrain a Nursing Home Resident in Illinois?
Illinois nursing home residents are often elderly, sick, and particularly susceptible to abuse or victimization from staff who claim to restrain residents who are a threat to their own safety. While there is no question that some nursing home residents may be unable to safely control their movements and could accidentally hurt themselves or others, there are safe and appropriate ways to use restraints. When restraints or restraining techniques are improperly used, they can be dangerous to patients. It is important to understand how and when nursing home facilities should use restraints so you can be on the alert for potential abuse of your loved one.
Common Types of Physical Restraint in Nursing Homes
Physical restraints can vary and depend on the particular issue that a resident is having. They may be devices, materials, or equipment that is near or attached to a patient’s body that is not easily removed. Common types of restraints include:
When is an Illinois Nursing Home Responsible for a Resident’s Choking Death?
Most of us take the ability to chew and swallow our food for granted. We eat three times a day or more without thinking twice about whether eating poses a risk to our safety. But as bodies age, reductions in muscle mass and strength in the mouth and throat, combined with dental problems such as tooth loss, make elderly populations at a much higher risk of choking on food. Even babies and very young children are at substantially less risk of choking on food than an adult over age 65.
This has especially significant implications for elderly residents of Illinois nursing homes who often require the assistance of nursing home staff to eat. When staff are overworked, undertrained, or left to monitor too many patients, nursing home residents may be improperly supervised and could choke on their food as a result. Sometimes, choking incidents are serious enough to be fatal.
Illinois Nursing Home Residents Are at High Risk of Physical Abuse
When a family has to decide whether to put a beloved and respected elder in a nursing home, it is often a heartbreaking and difficult choice. A family must place enormous trust in a residential care facility’s ability to provide medical care, physical safety, financial security, and a healthy daily routine for a parent or grandparent.
Unfortunately, nursing home staff do not always treat residents with dignity and respect. Understaffed and overstressed employees often do not have the time or the energy to monitor every patient sufficiently and it can be easy for an abused patient’s symptoms or complaints to go unnoticed. This is especially true when a patient suffers from dementia or another condition that makes it hard to speak or discuss a problem in detail. It is essential for the families of nursing home residents to be aware of signs of physical abuse so if it is present, it can be stopped and justice can be pursued with the help of a nursing home abuse attorney.
What Can I Do If My Loved One Suffers a Breathing Tube Injury in an Illinois Nursing Home?
Some Illinois nursing home residents have difficulty breathing by themselves. Many medical respiratory issues can cause breathing difficulties, such as pneumonia, emphysema, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Traumatic brain injuries and degenerative brain disease can also make independent breathing difficult. When a patient in a nursing home struggles to breathe independently, intubation may be necessary.
Putting a plastic tube into a patient’s airway, or intubation, is a fairly common procedure. But the sensitive tissue in human airways means medical staff must exercise caution when inserting, removing, or adjusting the tube. Sometimes improperly administered breathing tubes can cause serious enough damage that a patient can die. If someone you love has been hurt or killed by a breathing tube injury in their nursing home, you may want to speak with an attorney.
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