Category: Nursing Home Abuse

Abuse or neglect at the hands of those charged with their care may cause nursing home residents to suffer broken neck injuries. Some cervical spine fractures may cause minor discomfort or mild symptoms, while others may lead to significant health complications or even death.

After Nevada nursing home residents fall, family members should watch for signs that they have suffered a traumatic brain injury, or TBI. Gait problems, muscle weakness, and other such issues put elder patients in long-term care facilities at risk for falls that may result in serious injuries such as TBIs. Identifying such injuries is essential in ensuring they receive the medical treatment they need.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, advocacy groups, and state governments are making a collective effort to stop social media abuse of nursing home residents. An increasing number of people are using social media applications such as Instagram and Snapchat on their cell phones and other electronic devices. Unfortunately, there has also been an increase in the incidences of inappropriate and damaging images and recordings of nursing home residents on these platforms by the very people who have been charged with their care.

Medication errors, including giving residents the wrong drugs, are all too common in skilled nursing facilities throughout Nevada. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, a study of adverse drug events in nursing homes found the rate was almost 10 events for every 100 resident-months. Those who reside in long-term care nursing facilities often require round-the-clock care. While people put their trust in nursing home staff to provide this care for their loved ones, they may make mistakes while carrying out residents’ treatment plans which can have serious medical consequences.

Nursing home residents with dementia have a higher risk of suffering heat stroke, and facilities must take steps to protect them from the heat. Older adults are more susceptible to heat-related injuries or fatalities. They are less able to regulate their body temperatures. Many people with memory loss may take medications that have side effects such as dehydration and reduced sweating that compound the problem. People with dementia may also be less likely to notice heat-related effects. Nursing homes have a duty to protect the people who are in their care. If they fail to protect people with dementia from heat stroke, they may be liable for neglect or abuse.

Elderly people who live in for-profit nursing homes in Nevada are likelier to suffer from neglect and abuse than older adults who live in non-profits or in private homes in the community. There are a number of reasons why nursing home abuse is more prevalent in for-profit homes, including lower wages for front-line staff, an emphasis on profits over people, lower morale, and understaffing. For-profit nursing homes also are likelier to overbill Medicare for services that were unneeded or that were not provided.

Rolling back regulatory reforms that help protect America’s 1.5 million nursing home residents from abuse, neglect and exploitation would place some of the nation’s most vulnerable people at risk, and organizations and State Attorneys General across the country are standing up. Led by California Attorney General, Xavier Becerra, a coalition of 16 states and the District of Columbia has condemned federal actions that may delay the enforcement of protections for seniors who receive skilled nursing care.

A 93-year-old woman, Rebecca Zeni was ‘eaten alive’ by the scabies parasites at a nursing home in a shocking case of negligence. The nursing home, Shepherds Hill Nursing Home, located in LaFayette Georgia is said to have been infected with scabies that infected her and other patients. The former navy worker and model died in June of 2015 from septicemia caused by the crusted scabies on the skin.