Articles Posted in Nursing Home Abuse and Negligence

According to the Alzheimer’s Association up to 50% of dementia cases involving people under the age of 65 may actually be the condition known as frontotemporal dementia (FTD). More likely to hit at a younger age than those struck with Alzheimer’s, doctors are also now finding that the condition occurs more commonly than previously thought.

FTD begins with behavioral problems because nerve cells in the frontal lobes have died. Then, as the condition hits other parts of the brain, memory loss occurs. Other symptoms may include loss of inhibition affecting self-control, judgment, and the ability to make decisions, as well as apathy and loss of empathy. Eventually, the symptoms become similar to that of Alzheimer’s and many patients afflicted with FTD end up in nursing homes.

At Altman & Altman, LLP, our Boston nursing home abuse and neglect lawyers represent the families of patients who received poor care or were abused and sustained injuries or other health issues or even died as a result. Please contact our Massachusetts nursing home negligence law firm today.

The Office of the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has issued a report finding that a third of nursing home patients released are harmed by the care that they receive at these professional facilities. Many of the incidents reportedly could have been prevented. NPR says that according to Ruth Ann Drill, a deputy regional inspector general, a lot of the failures that caused this harm involved the ordinary, daily care that nursing homes are supposed to provide residents.

In Massachusetts, our Boston nursing home neglect and abuse lawyers represent residents that were hurt or whose health suffered because they did not receive the proper care they were owed at a professional care facility. Please contact Altman & Altman, LLP today to find out if we can help you.

The report looked at the records of 362 Medicare beneficiaries who had been moved from hospitals to skilled nursing homes for additional care between 2011 and 2012. The patients stayed at these care facilities for no more than 35 days. Out of the patients reviewed, one in five of them suffered adverse events while staying at these nursing homes. These events typically were related to the failure to provide proper care, including incidents involving patient medication, ongoing care, and infections.

Regulators in Massachusetts have finalized the mandatory minimum standards for dementia special care units more than two years after state lawmakers approved the legislation. This is good news for dementia patients living in nursing homes and it will hopefully decrease the number of Boston nursing home neglect cases involving residents suffering from this condition.

The new rules, unveiled last year by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and now formalized by the Public Health Council, requires that workers in dementia units get eight hours of training, plus another four more each year. Facilities also need to have at least one “therapeutic activities director” working solely at the unit to make sure that the proper activities are provided for residents.

Previous to the standardized rules, Massachusetts nursing homes could advertise that they provided dementia and Alzheimer’s care even though they had no formal training. With the new rules, all licensed nursing homes, and not just those that have designated dementia units, have to put all of their direct-care workers, including nurses, medical directors, dietary aides, social workers, activities staff, and therapists, through dementia care training.

Families for Better Care has issued the first state-by-state nursing home report card of its kind. The non-profit resident advocacy group graded and ranked states according to several federal quality measures. Massachusetts received a “B” rating and was ranked 19 among the states.

Massachusetts related-findings by the group:

• Close to 25% Massachusetts nursing home were determined to be deficient free following inspections.

A jury has awarded $1 billion in punitive damages and $110 million in damages to the family of the late Arlene Townsend. The defendants in this nursing home neglect case are Trans Healthcare Inc. and Trans Healthcare Management.

Townsend, was a resident at the Auburndale Oaks Healthcare Center from 2004 until her death there in 2007 at the age of 69. She was involved in more than one nursing home fall during her stay there and r family believes that she was not properly supervised.

The two healthcare companies had stopped participating in the nursing negligence case after arguing that they only ran the facility through September 30, 2004. However, a default judgment was made against them two years ago. Although they sought to have the defaults set aside, a judge refused.

The Quincy Medical Center psychiatry unit has been cited after state inspectors found filthy conditions and evidence of patient neglect during a surprise visit last month.

Regulators had received a series of complaints of patients being ignored, left unattended, and being left in bed without bed linens and only wearing hospital gowns, as well as reports of staff members being rude, disrespectful, mean, and abusive toward patients. These reports ultimately prompted investigators to search the unit where they found damaged furniture, missing privacy curtains in patient rooms, dirty floors, and absolutely squalid conditions. In addition, officials found that staff members did not know how to properly use the electronic record system used for maintaining patient records, which ultimately posed a risk of danger to patients being treated within the unit.

In response to the visit, Quincy Medical Center issued a statement acknowledging the unit’s problems and has since terminated several staff members and begun retraining remaining staff. In addition, the hospital’s human right’s officer visited patients every day after the inspection and weekly since then to address any concerns patients had.

This situation is an illustration of many individuals’ worst nightmares when they choose to send loved ones into a nursing center or other type of residential care facility. Many families decide to send a family member into an around-the-clock care facility when the family member can no longer take care of him or herself and needs specialized care. Under Massachusetts Federal laws, nursing home residents have certain rights while living in a nursing home; such as the right to a clean and safe environment, the right to proper medical care and attention, the right to make decisions about their care, how much attention they receive on a daily basis, and ultimately the right to live comfortably and without abuse or neglect. Unfortunately, many nurses and workers at these facilities in Massachusetts do not always honor the rights of the patients they are caring for, and these patients become abused or neglected.
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In an earlier blog post, our Boston nursing neglect and abuse lawyers talked about the recent report released by the Alzheimer’s Association, which one in three elderly persons suffers from Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia when they die and that deaths caused by dementia went up 68% between 2000 and 2010. This means that long-term care, health care, and hospice care costs are expected to rise dramatically from $203 billion now to $1.2 trillion in about 37 years. (By 2050 there will likely be about 13.8 million people suffering form Alzheimer’s.)

Unfortunately, there is no way to slow down or prevent dementia when it happens. Families and the afflicted must do the best they can, whether it means that a loved one must turn caregiver for the person suffering from Alzheimer’s or hire private nursing care or admit a loved one to a long-term care facility.

Because of what dementia does to a person-memory loss, problems communicating, inability to execute tasks, depression, behavior problems, mood swings, and personality changes-such vulnerabilities also means that a dementia/Alzheimer’s patient may be at risk of falling victim to Massachusetts nursing home abuse and neglect, including:

According to the advocacy group the Alzheimer’s Association, figures from Medicaid and Medicare indicate that out of three older adults that die, one of them will have been suffering from dementia. While this type of mental illness may not necessarily be the actual cause of death, dementia can speed up a person’s decline by upping the risk for other illnesses and impeding cancer and heart disease care. Also according to the report, 61% of patients in their seventies suffering from dementia are expected to die before they turn eighty, while that figure is only at 30% for septuagenarians who don’t have Alzheimer’s.

Possible Signs of Dementia:

• Memory loss • Forgetfulness • Problems learning new skills • Diminished social skills • Personality change • Withdrawal • Violent behavior • Agitation • Communication problems • Reasoning difficulties • Coordination and motor function problems • Paranoia • Hallucinations • Agitation