Articles Posted in Elder Abuse

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file1251238100316Cases of nursing home abuse and neglect often go unreported. Even when seniors report incidents of elder abuse, there is no promise that a nursing or assisted-living facility will be held accountable. Given that nursing home abuse continues to plague elderly residents of Southern California, where can we turn to seek clearer answers about the causes of abuse and neglect? According to a report from NBC News, interviewing certified nurse aides might help to give us some insight into the reasons that nursing home neglect continues to result in serious injuries to some of the most vulnerable Californians.

Taking Questions About Nursing Home Abuse and Neglect “Straight to the Source”

How can we find out more about the reasons that elder abuse persists in facilities throughout the state of California? One advocate, Carolyn Pickering, has decided to go “straight to the source,” and she is “asking certified nurse aides what they think the problems are.” As Pickering explained, there is a close relationship between happy and healthy employees and happy and healthy patients. You cannot have one without the other, she intimates. Given the link between employee safety and patient safety, Pickering believes that certified nurse aides and other healthcare professionals employed by nursing homes can help to shed light on the issues that result in elder neglect.

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Shower headOver the past couple of years elder advocates have been paying a significant amount of attention to physical abuse and neglect at nursing homes in the San Diego area. It is important to remember that nursing home abuse can take many forms, including emotional and psychological abuse. According to a recent report from ABC 10 News, allegations of elder abuse at a Vista facility have resulted in an investigation by the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department. The article indicates that an employee at the LifeHOUSE Vista Healthcare Center has been “accused of using her cellphone to take footage of a patient getting in the shower, and then posting it on the internet.”

Elder Abuse Investigation in Vista

The elder abuse investigation in Vista got underway after someone who viewed the online video “took a screen grab” of it and sent it to ABC 10 News. The video was taken on Snapchat. According to the report, “it shows a partially nude woman from the shoulders up,” and there is an employee “standing behind her laughing.”

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ScrollAccording to a recent article in the Contra Costa Times, California Governor Jerry Brown recently signed into law a bill that will impact licensing requirements for residential care facilities for the elderly (RCFEs). Specifically, the law will require applicants seeking a license to run an RCFE to “disclose prior ownership of any type of facility in any state.” With this information, elder justice advocates hope that California can prevent the opening of RCFEs by persons who have been linked to accusations of elder neglect or nursing home abuse around California and in other parts of the country.

History and Requirements of the New Law

The law began as AB 601, and it was written by Assemblywoman Susan Eggman. The law is aimed at establishing “specific suitability requirements for all licensing applications,” which involves the following:

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file000441681066A recent report from U.S. News & World Report emphasized that elder abuse is very common and that most of us do not realize just how frequently it occurs. Often times, nursing home abuse and neglect happens even when we might be aware of its prevalence. So, how do you best detect elder abuse? If you suspect that an older adult could be the victim of abuse or neglect,  how do you report it?

Getting the Facts About Elder Abuse and Neglect

According to the report from U.S. News, it is often difficult for observers to discern the difference between an “innocent” bruise caused by something like a “bump into furniture” and a more dangerous bruise that could be a sign of nursing home abuse. It is more important now than ever to know the signs and symptoms of elder abuse given the growing senior population throughout the country. Experts predict that nursing home abuse and neglect affects anywhere from 5 to 30 percent of the elderly population, and a study published in JAMA indicated that at least one out of every ten seniors “falls prey to some kind of abuse that’s either physical, psychological, sexual, financial, or neglectful in nature.”

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file000356994816When older adults continue to live at home with help from a caregiver, elder neglect can become a serious issue. Although some caregivers have medical training and should be expected to care for the elderly in a manner that emphasizes safety, some caregivers are not properly trained and can be implicated in situations of elder abuse and neglect. These situations can become even worse when an older adult needs medical treatment and cannot rely on a caregiver for transport to a hospital or a physician’s office. That is where a new transportation service for the elderly comes in, according to a recent article from the California Health Report.

Mobility is a Significant Issue for the Elderly

Mobility is a significant issue for elderly California residents. Whether an older adult needs transportation to a medical appointment or simply to the grocery store to buy food, a new service can help. Recognizing that elderly Californians often have difficulty getting where they need to—or would like to—go, Eric Wong developed Lift Hero. Lift Hero t is a service that looks a lot like Uber or Lyft, but it is designed specifically for seniors who do not have other modes of transportation.

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Elder advocates and those who work tirelessly to prevent nursing home abuse can be involved in many different professions, including medicine. According to a recent news release from USC News, geriatrician Laura Mosqueda is a “leader in the study and prevention of elder abuse,” and she’s continuing to work toward the prevention and early detection of elder neglect in California. Mosqueda is currently the director of the National Center on Elder Abuse (NCEA), and she hopes that her work in Southern California will have lasting impact on older throughout the region.6240576176_62b88ae159

Interdisciplinary Work to Prevent Elder Abuse and Neglect

One of Mosqueda’s focuses in the prevention and detection of elder abuse and neglect is taking an interdisciplinary approach to the problem. Sometimes we think of elder abuse prevention as a job that falls within the realm of community advocates or healthcare professionals who have daily contact with older adults. And sometimes we note that dedicated San Diego nursing home abuse attorneys play an important role in holding abusers accountable. But Mosqueda has worked to bring together elder advocates in multiple fields and professions on behalf of the elderly community.

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According to a recent article from Kaiser Health News and NPR, proposed federal rules are aiming at “modernizing” nursing home safety requirements across the country. What does modernization mean in this context? Given that the proposal contains “hundreds of pages of proposed changes,” which “cover everything from meal times to use of antipsychotic drugs to staffing,” it looks like modernization would require quite a bit of effort. In all likelihood, such modernization is deeply needed to help prevent nursing home neglect at facilities in California and throughout the nation.

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Better Technology Requires Revision to the Rules

If approved the proposed rules will require nursing homes comply in order to qualify for payments from Medicare and Medicaid. Medicare officials also think it’s time for a change. According to Dr. Shari Ling, the deputy chief medical officer for Medicare, “the existing regulations don’t even conceive of electronic communications the way they exist today.”

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When the costs of nursing home care are too high to provide families with seemingly decent options, do the risks of nursing home abuse and neglect become more prominent? According to a recent article from The Associated Press, elderly Americans are realizing that, if they require care in a nursing home, they’ll quickly outlive the amount of money they’ve managed to save. Indeed, “for the two-thirds of Americans over 65 who are expected to need some long-term care, the costs are increasingly beyond reach.” But will lower-cost options result in a lower quality of care?5846273434_ffcbff26a6

Unreachable Costs of Care

How much does it cost to receive long-term care? According to the article, “the median bill for a private room in a U.S. nursing home now runs $91,000 a year,” and “one year of visits from home-health aides runs $45,760.” Those numbers are even higher in California.

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The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently proposed a rule forbidding nursing homes from “requiring residents to sign binding arbitration agreements,” and according to a recent article in Modern Healthcare, the rule is “long overdue.” While California currently requires nursing homes to use only voluntary arbitration agreements—something that the American Health Care Association has been seeking—even voluntary agreements can pose problems for nursing home residents in the event of an elder abuse claim.6337308344_52480361a7

Are Voluntary Agreements Always Voluntary?

To have a better understanding of why even voluntary arbitration agreements might not be so great, it’s important to recognize why nursing homes and other facilities use them in the first place. In short, they “help nursing homes avoid costly litigation.” In other words, if a patient (or her family) thinks about filing a nursing home neglect lawsuit, an arbitration agreement can prevent her from doing so. Instead, she’ll have to go through arbitration. And many arbitration agreements—even voluntary ones—appear amidst a lot of other paperwork that appears when a patient enters a nursing home.

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According to a recent article in the Orange County Register, Kerri Kasem has been heavily involved in a campaign against elder abuse that aims to both educate the community and change the laws on visitation. Kasem is the daughter of Casey Kasem, the radio personality who passed away last June. Given Kerri’s concerns that her father was suffering elder abuse at the hands of his wife, Kerri began campaigning for elder abuse awareness in California.9736400153_2289e66888

Family Caregivers Can Be Responsible for Abuse

Back in 2013, Kerri Kasem’s father had been suffering from Parkinson’s disease and was recently diagnosed with Lewy body dementia. He had previously been residing in a nursing home, but his wife, Kerri’s stepmother, soon became his sole caregiver. At that time, Kerri’s stepmother prevented any of Casey’s children from seeing him, and she cut off the former radio personality’s contact with the outside world.

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