Nursing Home Abuse And Neglect- A Growing Problem in Connecticut
September 19, 2009
Posted In: Recent News , Nursing Home Abuse And Neglect , Fractures , Brain Injury , Wrongful Death
By Paul Levin on September 19, 2009 12:18 PM | Permalink
The consequences of Nursing Home abuse and neglect to Connecticut's elderly and most vulnerable residents does not often make headlines in Connecticut's newspapers and television broadcasts. Perhaps some of the reason for this is that when an elderly resident of a Nursing Home or rehabilitation facility falls and fractures their hip or sustains a serious head injury the intial reaction is too often a misplaced sense that "these things happen when one gets old." The same reaction might occur when an elderly person chokes on their food which may actually stem from a diet not sufficiently monitored for reduced mastication function or develops painful bed sores and skin ulcers as a result of an insufficient physcial activity plan and/or inadequate interventions related to periodic position changes while resting in bed. The problem is that these sorts of events while commonplace occurences are not supposed to happen while in the protective custody of a qualified Nursing Home or Rehab facility.
In Connecticut, there are overlapping federal and State regualtions and well accepted standards of care in terms of resident and patient management which require a throrough evaluation and action plan for each resident which addresses all critical functions of daily living. These include regimented fall protection prgrams and prescribed interventions, nutrition and physcial activity management. Medicare regulations require the facilities to adopt and demonstrate compliance with a physical activivty action and rehabilitation plan designed to improve the condition of the elderly residents rather than allow them to warehoused until the point of requiring acute hospitalization or death. I have a particular disdain for facilities which allow their dependent residents to suffer the sometimes terrible consequences of avoidable incidnets. My firm pursues such matters with purpose and vigor and has developed excellent expert resources to bring to bear in the analysis of
whether Nursing Home negligence is a subsantial factor in the serious injury,abuse or event the death of an affected family member.
Presently, my firm is in the final stages of preparation for a wrongful death suit soon to be brought against a local Nursing Home named Marlborough Manner. This case will shortly be filed on behalf of the Estate of George Cooley who suffered a pelvic fracture from a fall which should not have happened last December. George died as a result of complications he suffered following the necessary surgery to stabilize his fracture so that he would be able to walk again once he left the facility which he was temporarily in for rehabilitation purposes. Well, George never left and his family has not forgotten him nor the violation of trust which brought this awful result about. Due to medication management issues affecting his gait and stability, George was temporarily in need of two staff members to assist him with ambulation to assure that he would not fall per the written action plan in effect . In fact, The physical therapy department even suggested a gait belt to be tied to him as a further measure of security. George fell when one indadequately trained nurse's aide attempted to assist him to the toilet by herself! All manner of serious injury and worse may occur in the presence of negligence and it sometimes takes a thorough understanding and review of the medical records to ascertain the truth about what occured to Grandma or Grandpa. My law firm invite all such inquiries.
Categories:
•Recent News,
•Nursing Home Abuse And Neglect,
•Fractures,
•Brain Injury,
•Wrongful Death
Posted by Paul Levin | Permalink | Email This Post
Posted In: Recent News , Nursing Home Abuse And Neglect , Fractures , Brain Injury , Wrongful Death
