South Carolina Nursing Home Blog : South Carolina Nursing Home Lawyer & Attorney : Poliakoff & Associates Law Firm : Elderly Care, Senior Care

The NY Daily News had the tragic story of Verda Henry.  She entered a Westchester County nursing home in 2005 after she fell and injured her arm, thinking she would receive therapy and be home in a month.  Two years later, after repeated denied requests to go home, she in the  nursing home because of a horrific, infected bedsore.

Her daughter, Patricia Henry, said she and her children visited her normally active mother every day at Sutton Park, often for eight hours. The family complains that the facility was short-staffed.  "There would be a nurse and she would run between floors and they had no time," Henry said. "Nobody checks on her. Nobody feeds her. Every time we asked to take her home there was a reason we couldn't."

One day, Patricia Henry went to change her mother's gown and noticed the bedsore, already in an advanced stage, over her mother's tail bone.   Within days the sore was infected and she heard her mother's last words - screams - as doctors scraped at blackened skin.

"You could put your whole hand down in her back," she said. "You could see the bones and spinal cord. It was like raw meat. Mommy screamed until she couldn't scream no more."   Henry wants justice for her mother, who died a painful death because of a negligent system.

Bedsores, or pressure ulcers, are lesions caused by unrelieved pressure on the skin. They are largely preventable with adequate nutrition and by making sure a patient is regularly moved or turned every two hours, but are also often fatal once infected.

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The Southeast Texas Record had an article about a recent case filed against a nursing home for causing the death of a resident.  Lynda Calloway accuses Harborview Care Center of improperly looking after Doris Beard who suffered from neglect that caused bedsores, dehydration, and malnutrition.  She was a resident for 6 months.   Calloway contends that Harborview repeatedly violated the law by failing to assure and provide sufficient nursing care to Beard.  Nutrition and hydration are essential for preventing bedsores.  necessary staff is needed to turn and reposition residents and to change bandages to prevent infection.

"The defendant failed to implement proper infection control procedures, failed to intervene with appropriate medication, failed to treat Doris Beard for pain, and failed to keep Doris Beard's family of changes in Doris Beard's condition," the suit says.

"The defendant knowingly and willfully made numerous material representations to the plaintiff, upon which misrepresentations the plaintiff relied upon to their detriment.

"Material misrepresentations were made by the defendant with the intent to induce reliance thereon by the plaintiff."

"The defendant acted with conscious indifference and endangered Doris Beard's rights, safety, and welfare," the suit says.

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I found this cool website called Aboutlawsuits.com that had an article about a wrongful death lawsuit filed in Chicago alleging the nursing home's neglect caused fatal pressure ulcers or bedsores. 

The lawsuit states that Stanley “Ted” Dancy, 77, was admitted to the nursing home. However, after one month in the nursing home for rehabilitation, he was transferred to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was diagnosed with four advanced stage bed sores, as well as malnutrition and a urinary tract infection

As a result of the injuries sustained at the nursing home, Dancy’s health continued to deteriorate and the wrongful death lawsuit alleges that the bedsores and other injuries he sustained at Washington Heights Nursing Home were the contributing factors that lead to his death on December 12, 2007.

Nursing home bedsores, which are also commonly referred to as decubitus ulcers or pressure sores, are caused by prolonged pressure on one area of the body.  This is typically caused by the staff's failure to move the residents.  This pressure results in a lack of blood flow to the skin in that area, which turn into an open would that progress to a serious and fatal infection.

When immobile residents are not repositioned for long periods of time, pressure can accumulate on one area of the skin, typically involving the thin layers of skin around the tailbone, shoulder blades, elbows or heels.  Many residents do not get moved or repositioned for days because of inadequate and incompetent staff.

Many nursing home lawsuits involve circumstances where the nursing home was not properly monitoring the resident for signs of the pressure ulcers and leaving the resident in one position for extended periods of time. Failure to properly clean the resident, change soiled adult diapers or bed sheets also increases the risk of bedsores developing and getting infected.

Injuries caused by malnutrition and dehydration are a result of a failure to provide adequate amounts of food or fluids to a resident and are linked to negligence and neglect.

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WHEC-TV ran a story about a neglected resident who sued a nursing home for pressure ulcers, bedsores, and gangrene at Blossom South Nursing and Rehabilitation Center.  The nursing home is already facing nearly $150,000 in fines from the state for other deficiencies.

Resident Ruby Myers' right leg was amputated after gangrene had set in.  Myers broke her leg last September. Doctors put her leg into a brace that apparently caused severe pressure ulcers and open sores. The circulation in the leg was stopped.  The woman also suffered from bedsores.

D.A. Mike Green has decided to defer to the state health department for possible action but no penalty has been decided yet.   Over the last three years, Blossom South had 70 standard health deficiencies, while the statewide average was 16. And deficiencies related to "actual harm" or "immediate jeopardy" were 10 for Blossom South, compared to just one for the state average for a nursing home.

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We have numerous cases where a resident suffered horrible painful pressure ulcers because of the lack of preventative treatment.  The nursing homes always claim that the pressure ulcers were "unavoidable" due to the age of the resident.  A new comprehensive study disproves that claim.

This article discusses the purpose and success of preventing pressure ulcers from forming when nursing homes provide preventative care.

The Pressure Ulcer Collaborative project had been aiming for a 25 percent reduction in new occurrences of bedsores by encouraging health workers to use proven strategies to prevent skin deterioration.  Instead, the 150 hospitals, nursing homes and home health care agencies participating reduced new bedsores on average by just over 70 percent between September 2005 and May 2007.

Bedsores, technically known as pressure ulcers, are painful, occasionally deadly skin lesions caused by unrelieved pressure  that can cause infection and destroy tissue, muscle and bone if not properly treated.  They also can trigger depression, affect a patient's self-image and complicate treatment.

At the beginning of the New Jersey project, 18 percent of newly admitted patients developed a bedsore while receiving care. By the end, the rate had been cut to 5 percent of new patients, Holmes said.

Holmes said the preventive steps started with a prompt evaluation of each new patient, with every square inch of their skin examined and their risk of developing bedsores determined based on a standardized scale.

Hospitals then had to follow strategies to prevent development of bedsores. Options included shifting the patient to a new position every two hours, use of heel cushions and other padding for vulnerable pressure points, even use of special air mattresses that alternately inflate and deflate different areas, spreading pressure around.

Patients not eating or drinking enough water _ a common problem with older patients _ got a nutritional consultation because inadequate caloric intake or protein stores, as well as dehydration, can lead to skin tearing and breaking down.  Frequent follow-up examinations of the skin also were required, along with new ones for patients suddenly bedridden, as after surgery.

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