Posted on March 28, 2018 in Neglect

Nursing home abuse and neglect can sometimes occur not because of what caretakers do, but because of what they fail to do. Whether it is due to being an understaffed facility, inadequate staff training, or lack of oversight, nursing home negligence is sadly common. There are certain standards of care which nursing home staff must meet to ensure the safety of their residents. Unfortunately, when these standards are not met, the result can be devastating to residents as well as their families.

Elderly Woman Denied Essential Medication

A Bartlett, IL  nursing home may be forced to pay millions to a family of a former resident. In February of 2011, the 89-year-old resident was admitted to the facility after suffering a hip fracture. She was meant to stay in the nursing home while undergoing physical therapy to help her recover from her injury. As part of her treatment, the elderly woman was prescribed a medication called Coumadin which thins the blood and can help prevent clotting and strokes. Unfortunately, the woman did not receive this medication on a timely and consistent schedule. Records show that the woman did not receive her stroke-preventing medication for a period of two weeks.

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 Posted on March 20, 2018 in Neglect

The people who call nursing homes their residence are generally unable to care for themselves. Caused by either physical disability or mental, nursing home residents often have trouble expressing when they are being mistreated. Sometimes, residents do not have the memory to report times they have been neglected by staff and other times they are afraid to report abuse or neglect because they fear retaliation. If you have a loved one in a nursing home, be on the lookout for the following signs of mistreatment.

Major Changes in Mood or Behavior

If your loved one has become much more withdrawn or unhappy, this can be a sign that something is not right at their nursing home. While these symptoms alone are not enough to accuse the staff of abuse, patterns of sadness or irritability which coincide with certain staff members or activities could be an indication that something is not right. If a nursing home resident is hesitant or outright afraid to go to certain areas or be around certain people, more investigation is needed as to the cause of the apprehension.

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 Posted on March 07, 2018 in Nursing Home Abuse

Nursing home staff have one of the most important responsibilities in our society: caring for our elders. Tragically, some nursing home staff do not take this responsibility seriously. Nursing home resident neglect and abuse are serious issues. More than two million cases of elder abuse are reported every year. It is estimated that one out of every ten elderly individuals in nursing home facilities will experience some type of abuse. While efforts are being made by regulatory agencies and advocacy groups to prevent nursing home abuse and neglect, the current state of many nursing homes is unacceptable.

Shocking Camera Footage from Inside Michigan Nursing Home

The family of an 89-year-old Lebanese man is suing a Michigan nursing home after footage surfaced of caretakers abusing the elderly man. The resident was admitted to the facility in 2015 after undergoing a bowel obstruction surgery. His son was the first to grow concerned about his father’s safety. The son noticed his father was often covered in cuts and bruises. The octogenarian was also rapidly losing weight.

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 Posted on March 05, 2018 in Nursing Home Abuse

Many nursing home residents are prescribed opioid medication to manage severe pain. These opioid drugs have been controversial recently because of their extreme addictive properties. They are also dangerous in that an overdose of an opioid medication such as OxyContin, morphine, codeine, Fentanyl, or hydrocodone is often fatal. While these drugs offer relief for patients in severe pain, the presence of opioids in a nursing home often leads to trouble.

Illinois Nurse Caught Stealing Fentanyl Patches

A nurse from Bloomington has been accused of removing pain-relieving opioid patches from the bodies of nursing home residents. The man allegedly visited both the nursing home he worked at as well as a second nursing home in order to steal the patches off of terminally ill patients. He was recently charged with burglary and theft after co-workers noticed that he had come into work on his day off. He was found to also have stolen fentanyl patches from a resident with dementia. Assistant State’s Attorney Jeff Horve requested a $50,000 bond because of what he called “the egregious nature of the offenses.”

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 Posted on February 07, 2018 in Nursing Home Abuse

Staff at a nursing home have a responsibility to keep the residents of a nursing home safe and as comfortable as possible. When families place a loved one in a nursing home, they are assuming that the medical staff there will treat the new resident with appropriate medical care. Tragically, this is not always the case. Some nursing homes are understaffed or their staff is not adequately trained, which can result in medicine being given superfluously or necessary medicine being withheld.

Alarming Study Results 

According to a recent study conducted by the Human Rights Watch, approximately 179,000 nursing home residents are being given medicine which is not intended to treat the illness they have. Antipsychotic drugs such as aripiprazole, olanzapine, and quetiapine are used to manage psychosis. Individuals suffering from delusions, hallucinations, paranoia or a disconnection from reality are generally given these medications as a treatment for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. The problem is that about 179,000 nursing home residents being given this medicine do not have schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or other mental illnesses that those drugs are designed to treat.

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 Posted on February 05, 2018 in Nursing Home Abuse

Residents in a nursing home are often those we should respect the most. Grandparents, great-grandparents, veterans, and other venerable elderly people live in homes like these. Unfortunately, sometimes the elders of our society are not treated justly. Because many residents of nursing homes lack the ability to communicate well, nursing home abuse and neglect often goes unreported. When evidence of abuse or neglect arises, it is critically important that it be investigated thoroughly and that guilty parties are held accountable.

Extreme Heat and Dehydration

A Florida nursing home is under severe scrutiny after a horrific series of events led to 12 residents dying. The residents who passed away did so in the days and weeks following Hurricane Irma in the fall of last year. The hurricane caused the air conditioning to go out at the facility, and residents were forced to endure dangerous heat and disgusting conditions. Many of them were simply not well enough to handle the extreme conditions and lost their lives as a result.

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 Posted on January 31, 2018 in Nursing Home Abuse

Those who stay in a nursing home are usually there because they cannot physically or mentally care for themselves anymore. Families place their loved ones in nursing homes with the expectation that the staff will treat their family member with the same compassion and dignity that they do. When a resident at a nursing home is injured or killed due to the negligence of the nursing home staff, the injured person or the estate of the individual who passed away may be eligible for compensation. Such was the situation in a recent case involving a Georgia nursing home.

Lacking Medical Staff Can Result in Inadequate Care

The case in question was a lawsuit that stemmed from the 2012 death of a 71-year-old resident in a Lowndes County, GA, nursing home. According to court documents, the problems began the elderly man began complaining of vomiting and a distended abdomen. An alleged lack of appropriate medical staff at the facility meant that there was not a registered nurse (RN) or a doctor who could provide prompt medical attention. The only available medical staff member was a licensed practical nurse (LPN) who examined the man and called an off-site physician’s assistant (PA) for a second opinion, the lawsuit allged.

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 Posted on December 29, 2017 in Nursing Home Abuse

Each year, the Illinois Department of Public Health’s Nursing Home Hotline receives approximately 19,000 calls and more than 5,000 complaints alleging incidences of nursing home negligence or abuse. Considering the state is home to only 1,200 long-term care facilities, these numbers are staggering.

In August 2015, Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner signed legislation that guarantees the right of nursing home patients and their families to install and maintain video cameras in patients’ rooms. Illinois is one of just six states with laws that explicitly permit “senior cams”—as they have come to be known—in nursing homes and assisted living facilities. These types of cameras are intended to reduce and eliminate nursing home abuse, but they are also being used to hold facilities responsible when abuse and neglect occur. Recently, a tragic situation in Florida—a state that currently has no law regarding senior cams—was caught on video and exposed to the public.

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