Articles Tagged with san bernardino nursing home

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Anyone who has an elderly parent or relative who resides in a nursing home or assisted-living facility in San Bernardino County should know about the risks of nursing home abuse, neglect, and negligence. Generally speaking, older adults in nursing homes and assisted-living facilities can be at risk of injuries from various types of harm, both intentional and unintentional. Trying to understand the distinctions between abuse, neglect, and negligence in relation to seniors can be confusing, and our Southern California nursing home abuse and neglect lawyers can help to clarify the terms for you. If you have further questions or if you need assistance with a claim, do not hesitate to get in touch with us.

Intentional Elder Abuse

The term elder abuse often refers to acts of intentional abuse. The National Council on Aging (NCOA) underscores that there are many forms of intentional abuse that can result in severe harm to older adults in nursing homes and assisted-living facilities, including physical abuse, emotional or psychological abuse, sexual abuse, and willful deprivation. 

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Nursing homes in San Bernardino County and throughout Southern California must comply with state and federal laws concerning resident care. Those laws require nursing homes to provide a particular level of care based on the resident’s needs, to comply with residents’ rights, and to ensure a certain level of safety at the facility. In recent years, questions and concerns about transparency in nursing homes have become particularly important as residents have experienced injuries due to nursing home abuse and neglect, have been transferred unlawfully to hospice facilities, and have been evicted for inexplicable reasons. 

As of January 1, 2024, a new law is in effect that requires nursing homes to provide detailed information to residents upon eviction. Our San Bernardino County nursing home abuse and neglect lawyers can tell you more.

Risk of Forcible Discharge or Eviction at California Nursing Homes

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Many different types of injuries can be warning signs of nursing home abuse or neglect in San Bernardino County and throughout Southern California. Burn injuries are one type of injury that can signal physical abuse or passive neglect, depending upon the burn injury and how the nursing home resident sustained it. While burn injuries may not be quite as common as certain other types of harm reported in nursing homes (such as bed sores, for example), burn injuries do occur, and the facility and other parties could be liable. Our San Bernardino nursing home neglect attorneys can tell you more about elderly burn injuries and how they can be symptoms of abuse or neglect in Southern California nursing facilities.

Learning More About Burn Injuries in the Elderly

Older adults in nursing homes can be more susceptible to burn injuries, and burn injuries can be more problematic in older patients, as well. Indeed, as Wolters Kluwer underscores, “older adults are more prone to burn injury and are also more likely to develop complications after the injury.” In addition, “treatment outcomes are overall worse for older compared with younger adults,” and “the incidence of burn injuries in older adults is increasing.” In addition to physical harm, burn injuries can also have psychological consequences, and it can be difficult for older adults to recover from serious burn injuries.

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Do nursing homes in San Bernardino County and elsewhere in Southern California have enough staff members to prevent resident injuries due to negligence? Nursing homes have a duty to provide residents with the specific types of care they need, and when a facility is understaffed and a resident suffers an injury as a result of the understaffing, the facility may be liable. According to a recent report in The New York Times, federal officials have proposed new rules for increasing the number of staff members at nursing homes throughout the country. How do the newly proposed standards compare with current requirements in California? And what should you do if you believe an elderly loved one at a nursing home suffered serious or deadly injuries due to neglect and understaffing?

Our San Bernardino County nursing home neglect lawyers are here to help, and we can tell you more.

Learning More About the Newly Proposed Federal Rules

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For quite some time, nursing home abuse and neglect studies have shown that older adults with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia may be more vulnerable to various types of elder abuse, and it may be more difficult for them to make accurate reports of that abuse, as well. According to a new study published in the journal Health Affairs, researchers contend that nursing home residents with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia need to be in facilities where “they are the majority” in order to have the best chance at quality care, yet most facilities in California “accommodate a heterogeneous population, where specialized training is limited.” In other words, most dementia patients at California nursing homes may be unnecessarily subject to conditions where they could sustain preventable injuries. 

Dementia Patients Need to Be the Focus of Care

When an older adult has Alzheimer’s disease or another form of dementia, and that person is residing in a nursing home, it is particularly important for that person to be in a facility where dementia patients are the focus of the care. According to the study, ADRD residents, or nursing home residents who have been diagnosed with “Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias,” are currently “dispersed throughout all nursing homes, with fewer than half in facilities where they accounted for 60% to 90% of the population.” In these circumstances, the quality of care for ADRD residents was of a lower quality than at facilities where they were at the center of the type of care provided by the facility.

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When we think about characteristics that make people particularly vulnerable to nursing home abuse or neglect in San Bernardino County, we often think about age, socioeconomic factors, community relationships, and a nursing home resident’s relative health. It is important to know that older adults are subject to abuse and neglect in ways other patients may not. Nursing home residents who cannot afford certain types of care or do not have family members or trustworthy loved ones in their community to consider their best interests can suffer injuries due to nursing home abuse or neglect — sometimes at higher rates than others. The Alzheimer’s Association also underscores that nursing home residents with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia are especially vulnerable to abuse, often because they do not have the cognitive abilities to recognize abuse or to report it.

What about gender and sex? And, in particular, are women at higher risk of certain types of abuse in nursing home settings? Our San Bernardino nursing home abuse attorneys want to say more about gender-based violence and elder abuse in Southern California.

Women Residents of Nursing Homes Are More Likely to Be Victims of Sexual Abuse

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Although COVID-19 does not pose the same broad risks in San Bernardino County that it did in the early years of the pandemic, the virus does continue to pose a relatively serious risk to older adults in nursing homes. Even seniors who have been fully vaccinated and boosted are still at higher risk of developing serious symptoms from COVID-19, and nursing homes have a duty to ensure that infection-control measures are in place to prevent the spread of the virus if a resident does become infected. According to a recent story from KQED, some nursing homes and other long-term care facilities are using COVID-sniffing dogs to identify the virus in residents. Can dogs really sniff out COVID? And when can a nursing home be liable for injury or death caused by COVID in a nursing home, assisted-living facility, or another type of long-term care facility?

Learning More About COVID-Sniffing Dogs in California

Can dogs really sniff out COVID? And can this practice make nursing homes and assisted-living facilities safer for residents? According to the KQED story, using COVID-sniffing dogs can be quick and effective, in large part. Indeed, the piece says, “in less than a half hour, dogs can scan hundreds of patients at a nursing home by sniffing their shoes and ankles,” and “if they identify COVID, they will sit down next to the suspected resident.” Facilities are then using rapid antigen tests to “verify the results” provided by the dogs.

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Older adults in San Bernardino County nursing homes are at greater risk of severe injuries from falls than younger adults. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), falls among adults aged 65 and older result in about 34,000 deaths yearly and three million emergency department visits. In terms of the economic costs of senior falls, the CDC reports that falls among older adults cost approximately $50 billion annually in medical care. There are many different reasons that older adults are more likely to fall and that those falls are more likely to result in severe injuries. Older adults are more likely to be on medications that make balancing difficult. Physical conditions can make it more challenging to get out of bed or shower without falling. In addition, older adults — and women in particular — may have bone density issues that can make a severe fracture more likely when a fall does occur.

When falls happen at nursing homes, is the nursing home liable? To determine liability, it will be important to have an experienced San Bernardino nursing home negligence lawyer assess your case. In the meantime, the following are some questions you can ask yourself to consider whether the nursing home could be responsible for damages resulting from a fall.

Did the Fall Result From a Hazard on the Nursing Home Premises?

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When nursing homes in San Bernardino County fail to provide adequate care to residents who are confined to their beds or have trouble with mobility, those residents can develop bed sores. While early stage bed sores can usually be treated effectively, bed sores that worsen can result in debilitating and life-threatening harm. In fact, in some cases, bed sores can result in fatal infections. What causes bed sores in Southern California nursing homes, and what should you do if you have an elderly loved one who developed bed sores under a nursing home’s watch? Our San Bernardino nursing home abuse lawyers can assist you.

Learning About the Causes of Bed Sores in Nursing Homes

What usually causes bed sores in nursing homes in San Bernardino County? According to the Mayo Clinic, bed sores result from “pressure against the skin that limits blood flow to the skin.” There are major contributing factors that often involve nursing home negligence, as well as risk factors for certain residents. The Mayo Clinic identifies the following as the three major contributing factors to bed sore injuries:

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Fall prevention in San Bernardino County nursing homes is critical to avoid serious injuries among elderly residents. Nursing homes and assisted-living facilities have a duty to ensure that patients have the care they need to avoid a fall and that the premises are also safe for use. When a fall does happen at a San Bernardino nursing home, the facility could be liable. 

Learning More About Falls in Nursing Homes

To understand prevention methods for falls in nursing homes, it is important to understand how often falls occur and why they happen in nursing homes. The following facts and figures come from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC):

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