DO YOU SUSPECT ABUSE OR NEGLECT? Contact Us for a Free Consultation

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The online magazine Long-Term Living has compiled a list of persons it has determined as the “most influential” in the long-term care industry. It prefaces its list with a kind of warning that the industry has a storied history “full of ups, downs, hair-raising regulation and heartwarming innovations.” The magazine doesn’t identify the “downs” or the “hair-raising regulations,” but a clue might be a name included on short list (that also includes the late Edward Kennedy).

The magazine has listed James L. Wilkes, II of the law firm Wilkes & McHugh, P.A. to the list of most influential persons in the long-term care industry. Based in Florida, Mr. Wilkes is a nationally recognized attorney who, like the Walton Law Firm, represents individuals and families who have been impacted by nursing home neglect, a far too common occurrence in American nursing homes. Mr. Wilkes is described as a “holy terror” to nursing homes, because of the lawsuits he files against them for “negligent resident care, often manifested by life-threatening pressure ulcers, falls, fractures, and assaults due primarily to alleged understaffing by large for-profit chains.”

Congratulations to Ms. Wilkes for his inclusion on this list, and for fighting the fight on behalf of abused and neglected nursing home residents everywhere.

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An elder abuse and neglect lawsuit has been filed on behalf of an elderly Korean-American woman who died last year after what the family alleges was abusive treatment by her caregivers. Kyong-hui Duncan died last June while her family was looking for a new nursing home to take her to after it became concerned about the care she was receiving.

When the family’s concerns began, Ms. Duncan’s grandson installed a security camera in her room. The camera wasn’t hidden, and caregivers knew about its presence, but family members became suspicious when they would frequently find the camera turned off when they came for visits.

Though the family claims the camera was often shut off by care providers during routine visits, images taken by the camera during one such visit show caregivers violently shaking Duncan as they attempt to place her in a wheelchair. The family adds that she would often be seen sitting in her room for hours, crying for help, sometimes upside down in her wheelchair, without any response from the attendants at the center. Bruises were also periodically found on her body, while an autopsy revealed toxins from medicines not prescribed by her doctors.

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When Sean Suh’s grandmother was admitted to a residential care facility he wanted to make sure she was being watched at all times. To do that, he installed a camera at her bedside that recorded his grandmother 24/7. The camera wasn’t hidden, and frequently when Ms. Suh would visit his grandmother, he would find the camera unplugged. After finding his camera unplugged one too many times, he decided he needed to find his grandmother a new place to live. She died before he could move her out.

When Mr. Suh looked at some of the footage his “Grannycam” captured he was stunned. The video showed his grandmother being lifted off the floor and thrown hard into her wheelchair. Then, it appears, a caregiver tips the wheelchair all the way back and violently shakes the elderly woman.

Watch:

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The Washington Post is out with an interesting article about a growing national trend – younger patients are ending up in nursing homes. According to the article, approximately one in seven nursing home residents in the United States is under the age of 65, a number that has grown significantly just in the last eight years. This development has raised all kinds of issues for the nursing homes that take these younger patients like Adam Martin, at 26-year-old quadriplegic who is living in a nursing home.

“It’s just a depressing place to live,” Martin says. “I’m stuck here. You don’t have no privacy at all. People die around you all the time. It starts to really get depressing because all you’re seeing is negative, negative, negative.”

Older residents have their own issues with it as well, and frequently complain about loud music and rowdy visitors. And while most nursing homes try to house younger residents together, new steps are being taken to address this growing problem.

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A Northern California nursing home is claiming that the local hospital, Mercy Medical Center, killed one of its residents. According to news accounts, 74-year-old Robert Nelson, a developmentally disabled adult residing in skilled nursing facility Shasta House, was taken to Mercy in December for “digestive problems.” Nelson used a feeding tube for nourishment, and could not take any food by mouth. The nursing home said that the hospital was informed of this.

Visitors to Nelson at the hospital, however, said they caught hospital staff trying to feed Nelson by mouth on several occasions, including attempts to administer pills by mouth. The attempts continued, allegedly, even after warnings were given to hospital staff.

Not long after his admission for the digestive problems, Nelson came down with aspiration pneumonia, an inflammation of the lungs and airways, usually caused by the breathing of foreign material such as food. People with swallowing difficulties are at risk of acquiring aspiration pneumonia, but Nelson should not have been as his condition required no food by mouth.

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This is the time of year that families crisscross the country to see each other and celebrate the holidays, but it’s also a good time to check in older relatives who might be living alone, and under the care of someone. It is estimated that up to two million American seniors have been mistreated or abused by someone they rely on to provide car. For every case of elder abuse reported to Adult Protective Services, five cases go unreported.

Experts couldn’t agree more. Holiday visits, they say, offer a perfect opportunity to assess the needs and health of elderly relatives, whether they’re living independently or in a care facility. “You should visit with a checklist in your head,” says San Francisco social worker Mary Twomey. She advises people “to look for red flags: Has your parent lost weight, are they no longer interested in things they once enjoyed, are there any signs of physical abuse?”

Read more here from the LA Times here.

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From the New York Times:

A study from the Archives of Internal Medicine found that elderly people who take narcotic-based drugs for pain face an elevate risk of bone fractures, heart attacks and death than those who take a non-narcotic pain reliever. In what is considered the first large-scale effort to examine the safety risks associated with narcotic pain relievers, researchers concluded that narcotics were more dangerous than non-narcotics, contrary to popular belief.

“Doctors should not assume that opioids are a safer alternative,” said Daniel H. Solomon, the study’s researcher, said in a telephone interview on Monday. “They seem to carry profound risks to cardiovascular system as well as increased risk fractures and appear to be associated with increased risk of death.”

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Homicide detectives in San Diego were investigating the death of an elderly woman from the Palm City area. According to reports, the woman was being cared for by a professional “caretaker.” When a relative of the 83-year-old victim called police to check on the victim, police went to the woman’s home and found her dead in the bathroom.

According to police, there were no signs of trauma but that elder abuse was suspected. Police arrested caretaker Maria Moore on suspicion of elder abuse and booked her into county jail. A cause of death has not been determined.

News accounts do not state where Moore was employed by a home health agency or whether or she was working on her own. If is determined that the victim’s death was due to neglect, Moore and the agency she works with (if there is one) may face civil liability under California’s Elder Abuse and Dependent Adult Civil Protection Act.

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Peer-on-peer abuse in the nursing home setting is a problem that gets very little attention, but occurs with more and more frequency. A horrific example of this occurred two weeks ago at Chino Valley Health Care Center in Pomona. On November 23rd, John Lazzaro, a 91-year-old resident of the rehabilitation hospital, was killed after being attacked by fellow resident Matthew Harvey, who was only 47.

The details of the attack are kind of sketchy, but according to news accounts Lazarro was found in his room with severe wounds to his arm and face. So severe were the wounds to his arm it required amputation. It is very likely that Mr. Lazzaro couldn’t survive the surgery and died shortly thereafter.

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The nursing home industry (and nursing home lawyers) was stunned earlier this year when a Humboldt County jury returned a class action verdict against the nursing home chain of $677 million dollars. The plaintiffs alleged, and the jury believed, that Skilled Healthcare, the owner of many nursing homes in several states, routinely understaffed its California nursing facilities, compromising patient care in an effort to maximize profits.

The case was a battle. ”Everything was fought tooth and nail,” Timothy Needham, lead trial lawyer for the team of plaintiff lawyers told the Times-Standard. The trial lasted six months. But the verdict was so big it created practical problems for the victors, and potentially fatal concerns for Skilled Healthcare, a publically traded company. Because of the size of the verdict, Skilled Healthcare could not afford to pay such a huge judgment and could not appeal the result (appeals require the posting of a bond, which is a percentage of the verdict), and the plaintiffs really didn’t want to take over the company. So, smartly, everyone agreed on a settlement.

It was announced yesterday that the verdict of $677 million was settled for $62.8 million.

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