July 17, 2010

Delaware Lawyer Discusses Nursing Home Liability For Civil Rights Violations After Patient Dies from Bed Sores, Malnutrion and Sepsis

There’s been a recent Court decision that should be a tremendous help to nursing home residents who suffer from bed sores and infections. An 80 year old woman who was in a Pennsylvania nursing home died after she developed bed sores, became malnourished, and developed sepsis. This woman’s daughter sued the nursing home in federal court. One of the daughter’s claims was that the nursing home had violated her mother’s civil rights by failing to provide the level of care that’s required under a law known as the Federal Nursing Home Reform Amendments.

In the past, if a nursing home violated the standards set by the Federal Nursing Home law, the only risk to the nursing home was that the state or federal government might take action if the violations were discovered. This hardly ever happened because inspections were few and far between. As a result, nursing homes didn’t worry too much about being caught. But now, each and every resident of a nursing home is basically keeping an eye on the nursing home and can sue the nursing home to enforce the standards whenever there’s a violation. This is like having a cop on every street corner, and so hopefully nursing homes will make a much greater effort to provide the quality of care that’s required.

If you have a loved one in a nursing home who is not receiving the quality of care they deserve, contact a Delaware attorney right away to discuss your options.

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June 1, 2010

Nursing Homes - Bed Sores - Sepsis - Delaware Attorney

Bedsores in nursing homes are preventable. If they should occur, they should be detected and treated without delay. When the staff at a nursing home fails to do this, there’s a risk that a life-threatening infection called “sepsis” can enter the bloodstream. That’s exactly what happened to a 79 year old woman at a nursing home in California who died from untreated bedsores.

I previously wrote an article about bedsores and said that any nursing home that allows a patient to develop bedsores and fails to treat that patient should be held accountable. Well, a California jury agrees, and just last month awarded $30 million to the family of this poor woman who was also suffering from dementia. The incredible thing is that she was only in the nursing home for 7 months! In this short time, she developed bedsores which went untreated. This led to sepsis, which in a nutshell, causes inflammation to extend beyond the site of an infection, To fight the inflammation, the body forms blood clots which prevent oxygen from getting to the body’s vital organs. Lack of oxygen causes organ failure and death.

Sepsis is the 10th leading cause of death in the U.S. It is more common in the elderly, and in this population it’s very dangerous. That’s one of the reasons why there are Federal Regulations that apply to nursing homes when it comes to preventing, documenting and treating bedsores.

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September 24, 2009

Dehydration - Nursing Homes - Delaware Attorney

As a Delaware attorney who is outraged by nursing home abuse, I am especially concerned that the elderly are well cared for. In a previous article, I talked about malnutrition in nursing homes. Well, like malnutrition, dehydration can lead to a variety of serious health problems. For our bodies to function properly, we need water. Most of our body systems and organs are drastically affected by water deprivation. For example, we need water to regulate our body temperature, to maintain blood pressure, and to eliminate bodily waste.

Dehydration occurs when we lose more water than we take in. It’s that simple. And dehydration can occur more easily with the elderly, especially those in nursing homes because of inadequate care. Causes of dehydration include: (1) diarrhea, (2) the effects of medication, (3) inability to perceive thirst, (4) physical inability to drink or swallow, and (5) embarrassment related to incontinence.

Nursing homes have a responsibility to provide their residents with adequate hydration. Ways to prevent dehydration include assisting the person with drinking, offering fluids at mealtime and in between meals, and looking for the signs and symptoms of dehydration. Nursing homes have to provide proper training to their employees to recognize the signs and symptoms of dehydration. So what are the signs of dehydration? They include:

dark yellow urine
sunken eyes
ashen skin
dry skin
bleeding gums
urinary tract infection
weight loss
low urine output
constipation
dizziness
dry or sticky mouth and tongue
inability to sweat or produce tears

Some of the complications of dehydration are kidney failure, coma, shock, electrolyte abnormalities, and other heat related diseases.

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August 28, 2009

Malnutrition in Nursing Homes

When elderly people are abused, studies show that their risk of dying more than doubles. As a Delaware attorney, I'm extremely concerned about how many elderly people are subjected to abuse in nursing homes. There are many types of abuse. There’s physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, and financial exploitation. This is the first in a series of articles about elder abuse in nursing homes. In this article, let’s talk about malnutrition, which is one form of neglect.

Malnutrition can occur if you don’t eat enough food or if you don’t get the right vitamins in your diet. If malnutrition isn’t treated, it can cause mental or physical disability, illness, and sometimes death.

Federal law requires nursing homes to assess the nutritional status of its residents at the time of admission and at regular intervals of at least every three months. The nutritional assessment should identify whether the resident is at her ideal body weight and whether the resident is at risk for malnutrition and dehydration. The nursing home is required to provide for the resident’s nutritional health based on the nutritional assessment. This includes providing “well-balanced, palatable meals.”

What are the signs of malnutrition? They can vary, but common signs are fatigue, dizziness and weight loss. Other signs include:

clothes fit more loosely than usual
there are cracks around the mouth
lips and mouth look pale
dentures no longer fit
hair has been thinning or growing more sparse
wounds seem to take longer to heal
the resident appears confused (not as a result of a disease such as Alzheimer's)
the skin is breaking down
the eyes look sunken

If you suspect that an elderly person is being abused, neglected, or exploited in Delaware, call this hotline: (800) 223-9074.

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