Articles Posted in Elder Abuse

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rawpixel-1055781-unsplash-1-300x201A new federal nursing home bill is designed to prevent elder abuse, and it could help patients at facilities in San Bernardino County and throughout California. According to a recent article in Skilled Nursing News, the proposed legislation “seeks to protect individuals in nursing homes by implementing more stringent staffing protocols—including increased clinical hours and training—among other safety measures for residents.” Nursing home abuse and neglect often occurs as a result of understaffing. If a federal law were to mandate certain staffing numbers in facilities, rates of abuse and neglect could drop. 

Learning More About the Quality Care for Nursing Home Residents Act

The proposed law is known as the Quality Care for Nursing Home Residents Act. The bill is co-sponsored by two Democratic lawmakers, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (Illinois) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (Connecticut). It has support from lawmakers in both the House and Senate. In addition to requiring certain staffing levels for facilities receiving payments through Medicare and Medicaid, the bill would also make other changes to nursing home mandates. First, nursing staff members would be required to go through “heightened training” and would be subject to heightened “supervision obligations.” This requirement, in connection with the requirement for increased staff numbers, aims to prevent nursing home abuse and neglect by targeting staff at these facilities. Three registered nurses (RNs) would have to be on staff as “management personnel.”

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jorge-lopez-284336-copy-300x200If you are seeking out a nursing home for an elderly loved one in Orange County, it can be difficult to identify a facility that has a strong history of complying with safety regulations and providing quality care for patients. While you might think that a more expensive nursing home is less likely to engage in hiring practices that could lead to injuries caused by nursing home abuse or neglect, the price of a nursing home is not necessarily indicative of its quality. Even expensive nursing homes can have safety citations and histories of nursing home abuse injuries. According to a recent article in McKnight’s Long-Term Care News, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has plans to update its “Nursing Home Compare” information to include an “abuse icon” that will alert potential patients and their families to dangerous histories of abuse and neglect. 

CMS Data Update Will Add an Abuse Icon

Currently, potential nursing home residents and their families can access information about nursing homes from the CMS “Nursing Home Compare” website. The website allows consumers to compare multiple nursing homes, assessing CMS ratings for those facilities and other important information that can illuminate whether the nursing home is a good fit. Yet that data can be difficult to navigate, especially for individuals and families who do not have experience analyzing detailed information about nursing homes. In order to make it easier to assess these facilities and to learn whether the facility has a recent history of abuse, CMS will be adding an “abuse alert icon.”

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brandon-holmes-199535-unsplash-copy-300x200Whether you have a loved one who currently resides in a nursing home or an assisted-living facility, or if a former neighbor or co-worker lives in a nursing facility and you visit regularly, it is important to know how to spot signs of nursing home abuse and neglect. Yet simply being able to identify possible symptoms of elder abuse is only the first step. If you do not have any familiarity with the legal system or the health care system in San Diego County, it can be difficult to know what to do once you have concerns about elder abuse. This is particularly true if you do not know the senior well and want to help, but you do not know where to turn. 

The Administration for Community Living (ACL) and the California Institute on Aging provides information about identifying and reporting elder abuse and neglect, and we want to discuss some of those steps and options with you below.

When You are Worried About an Emergency Situation

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josh-appel-423804-copy-300x225If you are in the process of looking for a nursing home or assisted-living facility in Los Angeles County for a loved one, it can be difficult to know how to choose the best facility and how to assess the risks of nursing home abuse at a particular place. Given that nursing home abuse and neglect can happen in some of the most seemingly luxurious and upscale facilities, it is important to keep in mind that the cost of care alone is not necessarily a predictor of senior safety in the facility. However, according to a recent article from Reveal News, a study conducted by The Center for Investigative Reporting suggests that one clear indicator of safety issues in a nursing home or assisted living facility may be the way the facility treats its workers.

In short, “operators of senior . . . homes that violate labor laws and steal workers’ wages . . . often also endanger or neglect their residents, sometimes with dire consequences.” We want to say more about the study and to discuss ways of identifying potential safety concerns in nursing homes.

U.S. Department of Labor Cases and Nursing Home Abuse Reports in California

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paolo-bendandi-s8Wrjl8-AeY-unsplash-copy-300x197When we think about nursing home abuse and neglect in San Clemente, we often think about the role that healthcare providers and nursing facility staff members play in perpetrating elder abuse or failing to take proper care of an elderly loved one. While elder abuse certainly occurs in nursing home settings due to abuse and neglect perpetrated by employees of the facility, it is also important to keep in mind that many elder abuse injuries occur because of a family member’s behavior. According to a recent study reported in Physician’s Weekly, elder abuse is perpetrated most often by family members—both family members who serve as caregivers and family members who otherwise have regular contact with seniors.

Elder Abuse and Family Members: What the Recent Study Says

The recent study on elder abuse sought to determine what type of person is most commonly responsible for perpetrating abuse. The study was conducted by a team of researchers led by Dr. Gali H. Weissberger at the University of Southern California in Alhambra, and it was published in the Journal of Applied Gerontology. Dr. Weissberger and the other researchers relied on data from the National Center on Elder Abuse (NCEA) resource line from 2014 through 2017. The analyzed nearly 2,000 calls that came into the resource line, concluding that “42.2% involved alleged abuse,” and in nearly 47% of those cases involving abuse, “the most commonly identified perpetrators were family members.”

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brandon-holmes-199535-unsplash-copy-300x200The primary way that state and federal agencies keep track of nursing home and elder abuse rates in the U.S. is through reporting. In other words, healthcare workers, physicians, nursing home staff, and others who interact with seniors are supposed to report incidents of nursing home abuse or neglect to enforcement agencies. However, according to a recent article in NPR, despite the fact that this kind of reporting is required by law, there is substantial underreporting.

This information comes from a recent report published by the Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which indicates that “in many cases of abuse or neglect severe enough to require medical attention, the incidents have not been reported to enforcement agencies.” Why does underreporting happen, and what steps can lead to more effective reporting?

Reporting Elder Abuse After Patients Receive Care in Emergency Room

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parker-byrd-139348-copy-300x200Whether you have an elderly loved one in a nursing home in Poway or in an assisted living facility elsewhere in California, it is extremely important to know how the facility makes hiring decisions and whether the facility has been subject to elder abuse violations in the past. While even the best and most thorough research may not always uncover risks of nursing home abuse and neglect in San Diego County or farther north in California, background research can help you to avoid selecting a facility for your elderly loved one that has a history of elder abuse. Part of choosing the best nursing home is having access to proper information about facilities and their safety ratings.

 
A recent article in the Fresno Bee discusses an elder abuse case that resulted in a senior’s death. This incident highlights the need for better CMS oversight of nursing home resources.

 
Elder Abuse Results in Fatality at California Assisted Living Facility

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daniele-levis-pelusi-9BObZ4pzn3Y-unsplash-copy-300x225When a patient in an Escondido nursing home suffers serious illness or injury as a result of a “superbug,” is nursing home negligence to blame? In other words, if a facility fails to take proper precautions to prevent nursing home patients from contracting “superbugs,” or medication-resistant bacteria and fungi, can that facility be held responsible for nursing home neglect? That is a question that elder safety advocates have begun asking in the wake of news about superbugs causing serious and fatal injuries in hospitals and nursing homes across the country. 

How Nursing Homes are Grappling with Superbugs

According to a recent article in Kaiser Health News, hospitals and nursing homes in California have begun using a strategy that might strike readers as bizarre at first: The facilities have started “washing patients with a special soap.” Along with facilities in Illinois, California nursing homes and hospitals are among the first to begin using this strategy, funded by about $8 million in total from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In all, about 50 facilities in both California and Illinois are employing this new procedure.

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rawpixel-487102-unsplash-copy-300x207Whether your elderly loved one resides in an assisted living facility in Oceanside or another area of San Diego County, it is important to reconsider whether an assisted living facility is the right place if your elderly loved one suffers from dementia. According to a recent article in Kaiser Health News, the number of assisted living facilities has been expanding across the country, meaning that there are more assisted living options than there were previously. However, as a result of the rapid growth of these facilities, they are becoming less and less equipped to handle the needs of patients with dementia. Dementia patients are suffering injuries as a result of elder neglect. 

Nursing home abuse and neglect can occur in any facility regardless of its previous safety record, and even the most well-intentioned facilities may not be able to provide property care for dementia patients, the article suggests.

Goals of Assisted-Living Facilities

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james-williams-502481-unsplash-copy-300x225Seniors with Dementia at Increased Risk of Nursing Home Abuse and Neglect in Valley Center 

Older adults in Valley Center who suffer from Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of dementia are at greater risk of becoming victims of nursing home abuse or neglect. The connection between dementia and elder abuse has been relatively well-studied, and an article published in the journal Health Affairs underscores the link between dementia and nursing home abuse, especially in situations of emotional abuse. That journal article reported that, after a literature review concerning elder abuse and dementia, the researchers concluded that “many older adults experienced multiple forms of abuse simultaneously, and the risk of mortality from abuse and self-neglect may be higher in older adults with greater levels of cognitive impairment.”

Are nursing home abuse and neglect risks just as high when seniors are not properly diagnosed with dementia, or when there is a delayed diagnosis? In other words, do symptoms of dementia have to be advanced in order for an elderly nursing home resident to be at greater risk of abuse, or are almost all patients with dementia—even in its earlier stages—at more risk of injury? A recent article in WebMD suggests that “many older Americans with dementia don’t know they have the disease.” Are these individuals likely to suffer injuries as a result of elder abuse or neglect?

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