Vt nursing home sued in 2010 death

A Vermont nursing home has been sued over the death of a patient in 2010.
The son of 84-year-old Dorothy Papero has sued the Crescent Manor Nursing Home in Bennington.
The nursing home lawsuit alleges that Papero entered Rodolpho Davalos’ room and was told to “get out” before the 58-year-old man knocked her down. She suffered severe injuries and died two days later.

Police said Papero, who suffered from dementia, was known to wander about the home.
The complaint alleges the nursing home was negligent and asks for unspecified damages.
A lawyer representing the nursing home denying the claims.
Vt nursing home sued in 2010 death  : Times Argus Online

Poor Nursing Home Care

Read a great letter from a dedicated but frustrated nurse commenting on the level of care in nursing homes today: "I’m a registered nurse and have 15 years of experience working in long-term care facilities in the area. The facilities are a disgrace to humankind.

The negligent care given to the geriatric population is sinful. The last facility I worked in for two years had more than 20 nurses come in with love in their hearts and quit with their hearts broken. The nurses usually have more than 25 patients to care for — passing medications, performing treatments, helping families and documenting the care being given, all with only the help of two certified nursing assistants, who provide the incontinent care and feeding and who help patients with bathing and passing fluids.

A lot of these health care personnel don’t move real fast and have to work two jobs because of their low wages. They also have families to care for at home.

Patients are supposed to receive treatments, some of them three times a day. They are lucky, however, if they receive one treatment. These facilities are charging Medicare and Medicaid for supplies and some patients are not getting their medications properly due to the large patient assignments the nurses and CNAs face."

The Daily Advance

Disparate Nursing Home Care

The Chicago Police Department said it appeared to be a suicide. The Cook County Office of the Medical Examiner said it was an accident. But when 84-year-old Bennie Saxon fell four stories to his death May 4 at a predominantly black South Side nursing home, a lawyer retained by his family said it could be nursing home neglect.
An investigation by The Chicago Reporter found that the facility has the worst rating a nursing home can get–"three times the number of lawsuits of half of Chicago nursing homes–"and that residents get less than half the time each day with staff than residents at a predominantly white facility in Evanston operated by the same owner.
  Saxon, who had dementia, had been living at Alden Wentworth Rehabilitation and Health Care Center at 201 W. 69th Street in Greater Grand Crossing for about four weeks before his fatal fall, family members said. His family has retained an attorney to investigate whether Saxon received adequate care. "The law requires that [homes] take danger and fall precautions into account for people who are at risk for falling," the attorney said.

Murphy is awaiting autopsy reports and said a lawsuit could be filed within weeks. If so, it will be the 14th in Cook County court filed against the nursing home between 2004 and 2009, according to Cook County records obtained by the Reporter. That's more than three times the lawsuits than half of the city's 91 nursing homes; the median is four lawsuits.

At least one of those cases has been settled. In 2006, Alden Wentworth paid $600,000 related to the November 2000 death of Bernetta Hall, a disabled 46-year-old woman.
Disparate Nursing Home Care | The Chicago Reporter

Verdict in Abuse Trial

A Des Moines County jury awarded $600,000 in wrongful death damages Thursday to the estate of a Yarmouth man who died while living at the Danville Care Center nursing facility in 2009.
The decision of the five-woman, three-man jury was far below the $15 million attorneys representing the estate of Gene Bozarth requested during closing arguments Wednesday in Des Moines County District Court.
Nursing home neglect Attorneys representing the Bozarths and Health Care of Iowa, owners of the Danville Care Center, could not be reached for comment late Thursday afternoon. Jurors left the courthouse about 4 p.m. after seven hours of deliberations without commenting on the verdict.
Court officials said the request for $15 million in damages is the largest single request in more than 25 years in a civil trial in Des Moines County District Court. 
Jurors continue deliberations

Nursing Home Resident Murdered

The estate of an 82-year-old woman killed at a Rock Hill assisted living home last year is suing the home and two employees.
The Herald of Rock Hill reports the elder abuse lawsuit says the crime could have been prevented.
Pauline Cook was found dead in her shower in November at OakBridge Terrace. Her death came the day after she reported to staff and police that someone had been forging her checks.
Braquette Walton was arrested in connection with Cook's death. Police said the nurse's aide later confessed to killing Cook and trying to cover up the crime. Walton faces several charges including murder and burglary. http://www.sacbee.com/2012/08/23/4750873/dead-womans-estate-sues-rock-hill.html 

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/08/23/4750873/dead-womans-estate-sues-rock-hill.html#storylink=cpy

Massachusetts nursing home worker charged with assault

An employee of a Massachusetts nursing home in Berkshire County is facing charges of trying to rape a resident.

The suspect pleaded not guilty Monday in Southern Berkshire District Court to charges of assault with intent to rape, assault and battery on a disabled person over 60 years of age and injury to a disabled or elderly person. He was ordered held pending a dangerousness hearing scheduled for Thursday.

Police say the 46-year-old certified nursing assistant at the Laurel Lake Center for Health and Rehabilitation in Lee, was arrested Sunday in response to a complaint from another employee that a disabled elderly woman had been sexually assaulted in her room.

Lee nursing home worker charged with assault - Boston.com

Nursing Home Employees charged

Prosecutors have filed drug-related charges against six employees at a nursing home in Sulphur.

The Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics says the employees are accused of calling in fraudulent prescriptions to pharmacies to obtain painkillers, including hydrocodone.

Bureau spokesman Mark Woodward says there's no evidence any residents were deprived of their medications — only that the prescriptions called in were fraudulent.

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/6-Okla-nursing-home-employees-face-drug-charges-3686252.php

Elderly woman assaulted in nursing home break-in

A team of detectives is investigating the alleged indecent assault of a resident at a New South Wales nursing home.

Police say a man indecently assaulted a woman in her late 60s after he forced himself into her unit at an aged-care facility at Jewells, near Newcastle.
They say the woman struggled and screamed and managed to scratch the man's face before neighbours came to her aid.
Police Inspector Sam Crisafulli says the woman is in shock.
"It is disturbing and these sorts of things always are upsetting to police officers and the public. It's a horrible thing to happen at that stage of your life," he said.
Police say the man is around 5 foot 6 inches, unshaven, and smelt strongly of cigarette smoke.
Elderly woman assaulted in nursing home break-in - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Top brain specialist calls for ban on antipsychotic in elders

A senior neurologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center says many hospitals inappropriately use the antipsychotic Haldol "like water" in agitated elderly patients, putting them at risk for serious complications.
Dr. Louis Caplan, a neurology professor at Harvard Medical School, said a recent government report that found pervasive use of antipsychotic medications in elderly nursing home patents underscores the "overuse" problem with this class of drugs.
Caplan said Haldol is typically given to agitated patients to calm them quickly, but he said older patients, especially, can become over-sedated and stiff, putting them at risk for pulmonary and urinary infections, because they have trouble moving and couging.

"I would love to see Haldol banned from use in hospitals," Caplan said. "It has no role to play in hospitalized, agitated patients."
A report released this month by the Inspector General's Office of the federal Department of Health and Human Services found that 51 percent of Medicare claims for a newer class of antipsychotics, known as atypical, were prescribed inappropriately to nursing home patients.
The Inspector General reviewed medical records from 2007 and and found that 83 percent of Medicare claims for atypical antipsychotic drugs for elderly nursing home residents were associated with conditions not intended for that use. The report also found that 88 percent were associated with a condition that could produce serious side-effects, conditions for which federal regulators had specifically warned against such usage.
The use of such drugs is especially worrisome in nursing homes because a substantial number of residents suffer from dementia, a condition that puts them at greater risk of death when given antipsychotic medications.
The drugs were developed to treat people with severe mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, not dementia, which is the progressive loss of memory or other intellectual function than can result from aging or Alzheimer's disease.
Fderal regulators have issued nationwide alerts about troubling and sometimes fatal side effects when antipsychotics are taken by people with dementia, including increased confusion, sedation, and weight gain
Haldol is an earlier class of antipsychotic drugs, but Caplan said it's just as problematical.

Top brain specialist calls for ban on antipsychotic in elders

High Fall Rates Among Short-Stay Nursing Home Patients

One in five short-stay nursing home patients sustains a fall after their admission, and certified nursing assistant (CNA) staffing is associated with decreased fall risk, according to a study led by USC researcher Natalie Leland. The study recently was published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
Though falls are unintentional, they hardly are insignificant: the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services reports fall rates as a quality indicator, and falls of nursing home residents have been associated with greater morbidity, mortality and health care costs.
Leland, who holds joint appointments at the USC Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy and the USC Davis School of Gerontology, and colleagues from Brown University analyzed the 2006 Minimum Data Set (MDS) assessments of all first-time Medicare and Medicaid patients admitted to a nursing home

USC-Led Study Analyzes Fall Rates Among Short-Stay Nursing Home Patients | USC News

Neglect is cited in nursing home death

A Red Wing nursing home neglected a resident in September when the man was placed in the wrong wheelchair, took a tumble and died from the fall, according to an Office of Health Facilities Complaints report made public Wednesday.

The resident of Red Wing Health Care Center had dementia and had a history of trying to get out of his wheelchair, which was fitted with a self-release seat belt and an alarm that sounded when the man stood up. A worker put the man in his roommate’s wheelchair one morning. Workers heard him fall and found him lying under the wheelchair. He sustained a neck fracture and a head wound and died at the hospital. The nursing home now places initials on wheelchairs and has told staff to read care plans

Neglect is cited in nursing home death | StarTribune.com

More Abuse In Kentucky Nursing Homes

In fiscal 2011, state adult protection workers determined that abuse and neglect probably had occurred in about 28 percent of cases they investigated involving residents of Kentucky's nursing homes.That is up from fiscal 2010, when workers substantiated probable abuse in 18 percent of investigations involving long-term care residents, according to a report from the state."These are very disturbing statistics, and they reinforce the fact that we've got to get serious about elder abuse in nursing homes in Kentucky," Bernie Vonderheide, founder of Kentuckians for Nursing Home Reform said.The data comes from an annual report compiled in part by the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, titled Elder Abuse in Kentucky. The report says social workers conducted 2,090 investigations of adult abuse and neglect in nursing homes, assisted-living homes and other long-term care centers last year. Abuse and neglect probably occurred in 583 investigations, according to the report. Multiple investigations can involve a single resident.


Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2012/06/29/2243063/report-shows-more-abuse-and-neglect.html#storylink=cpy

Florence nurse charged with neglecting patient

A 54-year-old registered nurse has been arrested in connection with the death of a patient at a local nursing home.
Elizabeth Rush, of 816 Marion St., was arrested Tuesday and charged with neglect of a vulnerable adult, according to Florence County Detention Center booking reports.
Rush's arrest was the result of an ongoing investigation into the death of a 76-year-old nursing home patient, Florence Police Maj. Carlos Raines said.
The patient's roommate and another staff member at the nursing home told police they informed Rush that the victim was having chest pains and needed assistance but she did nothing to help. The patient later went into cardiac arrest and died, according to the arrest warrant.
Rush was released from the detention center on a $25,000 personal recognizance bond Tuesday afternoon. The investigation is ongoing, Raines said.
http://www2.scnow.com/news/pee-dee/2012/jul/03/florence-nurse-charged-neglecting-patient-ar-4079160/

Feeding tubes may worsen pressure ulcer risk

A new study led by Brown University researchers reports that percutaneous endoscopic gastric (PEG) feeding tubes, long assumed to help bedridden dementia patients stave off or overcome pressure ulcers, may instead make the horrible sores more likely to develop or not improve.
The analysis of thousands of nursing home patients with advanced dementia appears in the May 14 edition of the Archives of Internal Medicine.
“This study provides new information about the risks of feeding tube insertion in people with advanced cognitive impairment,” said lead author Dr. Joan Teno, a gerontologist and professor of health services, policy, and practice in the Public Health Program at Brown. “We see a substantial risk of people developing a stage II and higher pressure ulcer. We believe these risks should be discussed with family members before a decision is made to insert a feeding tube in a hospitalized nursing home resident with advanced cognitive impairment.”
In the new study, Teno and her team asked two basic questions: “How does having a gastric feeding tube affect the chances of preventing a stage II or greater pressure ulcer?” and “Does having a gastric feeding tube help heal an existing pressure ulcer?”
Previous studies, which were much smaller in scope, had produced inconclusive findings. By using a combination of federally gathered data from nursing homes and Medicare claims, the researchers essentially mimicked a randomized controlled trial through the use of “propensity match cohort” study. Over a particular timeframe, they compared thousands of patients with and without ulcers who received a feeding tube to three times as many statistically similar patients with and without ulcers who did not get a tube.

The risk of feeding tubes

What they found was that among patients who did not start with an ulcer, 35.6 percent of those with a feeding tube ended up with at least a stage II ulcer, while only 19.8 percent of patients without a feeding tube did. After statistical adjustment, they found that the chance of getting an ulcer was 2.27 times higher for people with feeding tubes than for those without. The risk of developing a more serious stage IV ulcer was 3.21 times higher for those with feeding tubes compared to hospitalized nursing home residents without a feeding tube.
Meanwhile, among patients who already had an ulcer, the researchers found that 27.1 percent of patients with a feeding tube saw short-term improvement, but 34.6 percent of those without a feeding tube experienced healing in a comparable timeframe. The adjusted odds of an ulcer getting better for people with a tube were 0.7 times as high for people without a tube, meaning their chances for improvement with a tube were less than for people without a tube.
The conventional wisdom among physicians — three-quarters of them according to one study — is that if anything, the nutrition delivered by feeding tubes should help patients resist ulcers. Perhaps with the idea of such a benefit in mind, physicians frequently don’t discuss the risks of feeding tubes with patients’ families, Teno has found.
The study did not measure how feeding tubes could cause ulcers, but Teno and her co-authors posit that because many patients become agitated by having a tube, they are often physically restrained and sedated with drugs. At the same time, feeding tubes can also increase the incidence of diarrhea. These circumstances, she said, may account for the development and worsening of pressure ulcers.
The new findings should lead doctors and families to ask more questions about whether feeding tubes are appropriate treatments, compared to careful hand feeding, for patients who have become so cognitively impaired that they can no longer eat independently, Teno said.
“To me this article is a game changer,” Teno said. “It provides solid evidence that there is a risk and that we need to discuss it. I’m hoping that people now can use this study to make better decisions in light of a patient’s goals and values.”
In addition to Teno, other authors of the paper were Pedro Gozalo, Sylvia Kuo, and Vincent Mor of Brown; Susan Mitchell of the Hebrew Senior Life Institute for Aging Research in Boston; and Ana Fulton of Butler Hospital.
The National Institute on Aging funded the study.
Feeding tubes may worsen pressure ulcer risk | Brown University News and Events
http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1151405

Suit alleges neglect of residents at San Pablo nursing home

Five people have sued Creekside Health Care Center in San Pablo and its parent corporation, Mariner Health Care, alleging that patients in the nursing home are subjected to abusive conditions because of inadequate staffing levels.

The lawsuit, filed Monday by San Francisco law firm Stebner & Associates, alleges that Creekside residents are regularly left unattended for long periods, often in soiled garments, are overmedicated and develop preventable bed sores because of poor care.
The suit also alleges that inadequate staffing and security allowed a man visiting the facility to sexually assault four residents between January and May 2010.
Julio Mestre was arrested May 9, 2010, and later convicted of four counts of sexual battery on an institutionalized victim, according to the suit.
"During the assaults, residents screamed for help, sometimes for more than 30 minutes, but no one came," the lawsuit states.
"The reason for the lawsuit is to try to bring about change at this facility in a systemic way," attorney Kathryn Stebner said. "Our case includes small statutory damages, but the main focus is to force the owners of the facility to follow state and federal regulations."
Suit alleges neglect of residents at San Pablo nursing home - San Jose Mercury News