Residential Care Facilities

January 31, 2025

Nursing Home Residents Have the Right to Leave: Understanding California Law

Is there any right more fundamental than the freedom to leave a place where you do not wish to stay? For nursing home residents in California, this right is often disregarded—sometimes in direct violation of the law. Fortunately, the California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform (CANHR) has recently updated its guide for long-term care residents who are being held against their will. This guide outlines the legal protections available and provides practical steps to challenge illegal restrictions on a resident’s right to leave.

The Right to Move Freely

Imagine you live independently in an apartment, making your own choices and living life on your own terms. One day, your landlord locks you inside, installs alarms on your doors and windows, and tells you that you’re not allowed to leave. He insists that, for your own safety, you must remain inside indefinitely. When you call the police for help, they tell you that your situation is a “civil matter” and that you need a court order to be able to leave.

April 28, 2023

Falls and Riverside County Nursing Home Neglect: Five Things to Know

by Walton Law Firm

Older adults, including nursing home and assisted-living facility residents in Riverside County, may be more likely to suffer serious fall injuries than younger people. Yet it is important to remember that falls are preventable, and nursing homes have a duty to take steps to ensure resident safety. If a fall does occur in a Riverside County nursing home or assisted-living facility, it is important to seek advice from a Riverside County nursing home negligence lawyer who can determine whether the facility may be liable. In the meantime, the following are five things you should know about falls and nursing homes.

1. Falls are Extremely Common But Preventable Among Older Adults

Falls occur much more frequently than you might think among older adults. Indeed, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there were 36,000 fall-related deaths among adults aged 65 and up in 2020, which makes falls the “leading cause of injury death for that group.” Around 3 million older adults experience injuries in falls that require treatment in an emergency department, and approximately 800,000 require hospitalization. Among older adults, about 20% of all falls result in serious injury.

October 30, 2020

Nursing Home Rights of Residents in Orange County

by Walton Law Firm

Nursing home residents in Orange County have a wide variety of rights under California law, which are designed to protect nursing home residents from elder abuse and neglect. Much too often, seniors in skilled nursing facilities in Southern California are still subject to poor care and intentional abuse, and many suffer serious or life-threatening injuries as a result. However, it is still important for older adults and their families to know what their rights are under California law.

Even if the existence of nursing home residents’ rights are insufficient to prevent nursing home abuse or neglect from happening in the first place, recognizing rights and understanding when they have been violated may allow a senior or her family to take action by filing a claim against the facility or a particular healthcare provider. The following are examples of the resident rights in Orange County nursing homes.

General Residents’ Rights in California Nursing Homes

July 24, 2020

Five Things to Know About Nursing Home Falls in Orange County

by Walton Law Firm

Although nursing homes in Orange County and throughout Southern California are largely focused on issues pertaining to COVID-19 infections and methods of preventing illness and death among residents and patients, it is important to remember that long-term care facilities still have other duties when it comes to resident safety. Nursing homes and assisted living facilities in California need to provide a certain level of care to patients in order to prevent injuries from happening solely as a result of inadequate care. Many injuries in nursing homes happen because a resident tried to get out of bed herself after being unable to reach a nurse, or a resident fell because a staff member was not providing proper observation.

To be clear, many injuries in nursing homes do not result from bad intentions, but rather from a lack of care often due to inadequate staffing. As many staff members call in sick with COVID-19 and staff members are swamped with coronavirus mitigation duties, more residents could be at risk of a fall-related injury. The following are five things to know about falls in nursing homes.

Adults Aged 65 and Older Fall More Often Than You Might Think

May 1, 2020

California Nursing Homes Have Infection-Control Violations

by Walton Law Firm

It is more important than ever to know if you have an elderly loved one in a facility with a history of infection-control violations, whether he or she is in a nursing home in Riverside County or any other across the state of California. Given the rapid spread of the novel coronavirus, which causes COVID-19, nursing homes need to plan and provide effective infection-control strategies to prevent nursing home patients and assisted-living facility residents from contracting this deadly illness. In recent weeks, COVID-19 has spread through many skilled nursing facilities in California and throughout the country quickly, leaving many older adults with severe and fatal COVID-19 infections.

According to a recent report in the Sacramento Bee, some nursing homes in the state have a history of infection-control violations. While the lack of a history of violations does not necessarily mean that a facility could not make mistakes or poor decisions in the future that might lead to patient harm, facilities that already have a history of violations may put patients at particular risk of COVID-19 infections.

Nursing Homes in California Have Violated Infection-Control Requirements

August 23, 2019

Superbugs in Escondido Nursing Homes

by Walton Law Firm

When 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.

August 9, 2019

Ethics of Nursing Home Cameras in Orange County

by Walton Law Firm

Discussions about the use of cameras in nursing homes in Orange County and throughout Southern California have become common as lawmakers, safety advocates, and family members seek innovative solutions to prevent nursing home abuse and neglect and to gain evidence to hold perpetrators accountable. Yet, are cameras in residents’ rooms the best way to stop nursing home abuse, or are there significant ethical issues that we need to consider before we decide that the benefits of “granny cams,” as these cameras are commonly called, outweigh their limitations?

A recent article in McKnight’s Long-Term Care News addresses the ethics of “granny cams” in nursing homes and suggests that more research needs to be done concerning these tools before they become widespread.

Are Nursing Home Cameras Ethical, or do They Invade Residents’ Privacy?

May 2, 2019

New Law Requires Minimum Number of Hours With Nursing Home Patients

by Walton Law Firm

Whether nursing home patients reside at a skilled nursing facility in Escondido or elsewhere in California, they now have greater protections against elder abuse and neglect. According to a recent article in the Los Angeles Times, a new California state law requires that patients receive a minimum number of hours of care from certified nursing assistants (CNAs). The law took effect on July 1, 2018, but will patients see an immediate change in the way staffing works at nursing homes across the state? Will staffing increases reduce the rates of nursing home neglect in the state?

Staffing Requirements Stricter, But Will Facilities Meet Those Requirements?

Under the new law, what kinds of staffing requirements are required at nursing homes in Escondido and throughout California? As of July 1, facilities must provide each patient with at least 3.5 hours of direct care every day. This number increased from a previous requirement of 3.2 hours of direct patient care per day. But that change is not the most drastic of the shifts in the law. The significant change is that at least 2.4 of these daily hours of direct patient care must be provided by CNAs.

March 8, 2019

Technology Sensors and Fall Reduction in Carlsbad Nursing Homes

by Walton Law Firm

Falls are a serious problem among elderly residents of Carlsbad nursing homes. For seniors who live at home, a dangerous fall can mean the difference between being able to live independently and requiring daily care at a skilled nursing facility, according to the National Council on Aging (NCOA). Slips and falls, as well as falls from heights, often result in permanent disabilities and sometimes death among elderly patients. As such, it is important for researchers, physicians, and caregivers to continue seeking out new ways of preventing falls in nursing homes and assisted-living facilities across Southern California and throughout the country. In some situations, a serious fall may be the result of nursing home neglect or nursing home negligence.

According to a recent public radio report, a small sensor developed by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University may help to reduce the rate of falls among older adults.

Falls are Common in Nursing Homes and Assisted Living Facilities

March 21, 2018

Teaching Seniors in Encinitas to Avoid Injuries in Falls

by Walton Law Firm

Many cases of nursing home neglect injuries in Encinitas and other parts of San Diego County result from falls. In certain situations, seniors are not monitored properly, and they suffer serious and sometimes life-threatening injuries after falling. In other scenarios, nursing home staff members may fail to provide the proper health aids, such as walkers, which can prevent a fall-related injury. According to a news release from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), approximately 29 million elderly Americans suffer falls each year, resulting in more than $31 billion in Medicare costs. Given the prevalence of falls among seniors, are there ways to improve preventive measures?

According to a recent article in The New York Times, Southern Californians may be able to take some senior safety tips from the Dutch, who “are living longer than in previous generations” with the help of “courses that teach them not only how to avoid falling, but how to fall correctly.”

Fear of Falling can Lead to Injuries Among Older Adults