Articles Posted in Nursing Home Neglect

A recent article on USAToday.com reported that the number of people who live to 90 years of age and beyond has tripled in the past 30 years to 2 million and is projected to quadruple by 2050, according to the Census Bureau.

As the number of older Americans grows, many are forced to live with their children or grandchildren as a result of the current economic crisis. But this trend has led to situations where the elderly are taken advantage of financially or abused physically by their caretakers. As a result, advocates for the old are pushing to educate communities about elder abuse and how to prevent it.

Laura Mosqueda, co-director of the National Center on Elder Abuse and director of the geriatrics program at the University of California-Irvine School of Medicine, is quoted in the article as saying, “The fastest-growing segment are people over 85 and the percentage of people with Alzheimer’s, dementia is at an all-time high. This is just an absolute recipe for disaster.”

The Cedar Village Retirement Community in Mason, OH opened a long-term care facility this month for victims of abuse. It’s the first elder abuse shelter in Ohio and one of only a half-dozen in the country, funded by non-profit groups.

Sally Hume, AARP’s senior project manager in education and outreach said, “There is a genuine recognition by those who are concerned by the abuse of elders that there need to be appropriate safe houses for them to get them out of immediate harm’s way. Nationally, we’ve been aware of the need for elder abuse shelters, but they’ve been slow in coming into fruition.”

The Weinberg Center for Elder Abuse Prevention at the Hebrew Home at Riverdale in the Bronx in New York City was the first in the nation, opening its doors seven years ago. Elder abuse shelters care for abused seniors by providing medical, nursing, and therapy services, meals, legal services, social work, pastoral care, and social, recreational, and educational programs.

“We estimate that as many as one in 10 (seniors) at some point are victims of elder abuse. A victim of elder abuse can be anyone. They can be rich or poor. They can be independent. They can live in a facility,” said Carol Silver Elliott, CEO and president of Cedar Village Retirement Community.

Elliot said some seniors become ill and unknowingly sign over their assets to those who care for them. “A few months later they find out they don’t have a house, their bank account is cleaned out. They have essentially nothing,” said Elliott. Others suffer physical abuse that can include not being fed or cleaned to being beaten.

But the problem can be difficult to identify or may go unreported because victims are abused by those who care for them. They may be cut off by their caretakers so they don’t have a way to let others know that they are being abuse.

Advocates say increasing public awareness is the best defense against elder abuse.

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The New York Times has reported that only one out of seven medical errors and accidents that harm Medicare patients are reported by hospital employees.

In the article, Daniel R. Levinson, inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services, said that even after medical facilities investigate reported injuries or infections, the facility rarely changes its practice to prevent the error from happening again.

The report says that hospitals are required to “track medical errors and have adverse patient events, (and) analyze their causes” in order to receive payments from Medicare.
Most alarming is that even the most serious problems that caused patients to die have gone unreported. Other events included bedsores, hospital-acquired infections, delirium from too many painkillers, and excessive bleeding due to improper use of blood thinners. These unreported events were spotted by independent doctors who reviewed patient records.

According to the article, hospital employees do not know “what constitutes patient harm,” said Levinson. An employee may assume another employee would report the incident, or they thought it was an isolated event that would not happen again. In other cases, employees thought the events were so common that they did not need to be reported.

Dr. Manny Alvarez, senior managing health editor of FoxNews.com said, “Medical mistakes are one of the biggest problems we have in health care today. We’re beginning to see that with more monitoring, we are identifying more problems.”

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We’re often quick to point the finger at nursing homes and long-term care facilities that receive negative ratings, so we were happy to hear that Fulton County Medical Center Long Term Care in McConnellsburg has received AdvisorMed’s 2012 Great Pennsylvania Nursing Home award.

According to an article on PublicOpinionOnline.com, the award recognizes nursing centers that offer services that consistently exceed their residents’ expectations.

AdvisorMed.com is a free online report card and health information guide to physicians, hospitals, nursing homes, and health care agencies. They determine rankings by using national standards that include information from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services as well as other data and consumer reviews.

According to an article on The Times-Tribune.com, PA Lackawanna Holdings LLC has accused the county of breach of contract, alleging it was not informed of an ongoing agreement with a commercial linen supplier when it bought the county’s nursing home in 2010.

The nursing facility, now known as Lackawanna Health & Rehab Center, was purchased by PA Lackawanna Holdings in March 2010. According to the complaint, the county was required to provide copies of all contracts, leases, and agreements related to the nursing home, which the new owner assumed under the purchase agreement.

But PA Lackawanna Holdings alleges that it never received a copy of a 2008 contract with Dempsey Uniform & Linen Supply Inc., nor was it made aware of 2009 contract with Dempsey that ran until 2014, to provide commercial linen services to the facility. It was not until the new owner terminated services with the linen company that Dempsey went to court in June 2010 to compel PA Lackawanna Holdings to honor the 2009 contract.

Delirium, a sudden change in mental status or sudden confusion, is especially common in elderly hospital patients.

A patient experiencing delirium may have clouded consciousness and may have trouble focusing or paying attention. Some patients may hallucinate or become paranoid, speech may ramble and thoughts may be jumbled. Some people become withdrawn while others may become hyperactive. Symptoms may come and go throughout the day.

According to the Hospital Elder Life Program website, delirium can slow the recovery process and add to the length of a hospital stay. A direct cause can usually be identified, such as drug toxicity, infection, dehydration, kidney or liver failure, thyroid disorders, alcohol or drug withdrawal, anemia, or decreased oxygen and some medications can also cause or worsen confusion.

Earlier this month, the Pennsylvania House and Senate passed House Bill 210, making changes to the state’s Family Caregiver Support Program which helps families care for loved ones at home.

The bill which Gov. Corbett signed Dec. 22, is funded exclusively with state lottery dollars and federal monies and increases stipends from $200 to $500 for the Family Caregiver Support Program, which reimburses eligible families for out-of-pocket expenses relating to caring for an older adult at home.

“Making updates to this legislation so that more individuals can get the care they need while remaining in their homes has been a mission of mine for the past decade,” said state Rep. Matt Baker, R-Bradford/Tioga. “This program provides financial support, counseling services and training programs for those who are giving care to another individual. As someone who served as a caregiver for a family member, I understand the many challenges caregivers face, which is why the services provided through this program are so important.

Erie County Council accepted a $2.5 million offer from Millcreek Manor for the sale of 88 individual bed licenses as part of plans for a new, combined Pleasant Ridge Manor.

Pennsylvania Department of Health and the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare must sign off on the sale.

The bed licenses were sold to raise revenue to combine the 2 Pleasant Ridge facilities into a new 300-bed facility to be called Pleasant Ridge Manor. Plans including closing Pleasant Ridge Manor-East in Millcreek Township and moving its patients to Pleasant Ridge Manor-West in Fairview Township, creating a new, modern facility that could cost more than $60 million.

As we gather with our families to celebrate the holidays, Anthony Youn, M.D., reminds us in a blog posted this week on CNN.com: thank a nurse this Christmas.

Hospitals are one place that you can guarantee will be open for Christmas because medical care never takes a day off. And as a plastic surgeon in Metro Detroit, Dr. Youn knows that most physicians who work on Christmas make their rounds with patients in morning, so they can spend the rest of the day with their own families. But this is not the case for nurses and other hospital employees who often put in full or extended shifts over the holiday to make sure all patients are cared for.

In his blog, Dr. Youn points out that each Christmas, nurses and hospital support staff juggle their work schedules and sacrifice their time, giving up their own Christmases to accommodate the needs of patients. He offers this suggestion: since hospital food can be iffy and on Christmas day really iffy, try dropping off some food or sending some take-out to the nurses’ station at your local hospital.

A Holiday Visit may be the perfect time to check up on Mom and Dad.

According to AARP, between the eating, drinking and gift-giving, make time to see how elderly relatives are managing.

Even if they say everything is ok, AARP recommends looking into four key areas to see if there is something needed, that maybe the relative doesn’t even realize.

According to the Pennsylvania Care Planning Council, caregivers often don’t realize when they are in over their heads, or at a breaking point.

The PCPC states a typical pattern with an overloaded caregiver may unfold as follows:

> 1 to 18 months – the caregiver is confident, has everything under control and is coping well. Other friends and family are lending support.