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Litigating to deter nursing home abuse & neglect of our elders. |
- "Neglectful caregivers are preying not only on elderly residents but also on American taxpayers."
- TIME MAGAZINE Fatal Neglect
Elder abuse: Their patients - our parents!
Elder Abuse commonly refers to the physical or mental abuse of our parents, or of the failure for any reason to provide kind and humane supportive care and treatment. This abuse and neglect frequently occurs in our parents’ own homes, or in the homes of their family members, and when this occurs we are shocked, saddened or outraged.
But what are we to think when this abuse and neglect occurs in institutional settings managed and operated by trained professionals who have secured a state license to operate their facilities? In order to obtain that license, the facility operator must promise to comply with a variety of laws, including health and safety and quality of care regulations. The law and our society should expect more from such "caregivers" than the untrained and dysfunctional family member. The breach of standards of decency when directed against our parents by such "professionals" should be punished much more severely by our justice system.
In our experience, elder abuse causes despair, hopelessness, feelings of powerlessness, a sense of abandonment and worthlessness. These feelings are not limited to the abused elder but are also experienced by their children. And children also feel betrayed by the nurses and doctors who promised to care for their parents, when family could no longer do so. Very intense feelings of guilt and anger are also experienced by children.
Physical injuries sustained by our parents in institutional care settings range from the effects of physical abuse administered by "caregivers" in order to discipline patients, or to coerce patients into complying with the demands of the institution. Such punishment often includes punching, hitting, slapping, throwing patients to the floor, slamming doors and drawers on patient’s fingers and hands with enough force to break bones.
Patients may be denied assistance with feeding, denied medication, including pain management medication, denied clean linen or assistance in reaching the bathroom, denied a response to their call bell, simply left in bed for days, or isolated in their rooms for weeks or months, all in retribution or to enforce facility "discipline."
It is more often the case, however, that such services are denied patients because the owners of the facility have chosen not to make sufficient staff, equipment or supplies available to care for their patients—our parents. Boiled down, abuse of our parents usually results from the operator’s drive for profit.
The physical injuries our parents sustain fall into broad categories:
 | Starvation and dehydration Our parents literally starve to death. Starvation goes hand in hand with dehydration. Dehydration causes reduced blood volume and reduced blood pressure so that the brain and other sensitive organs are deprived of blood. Brain and kidney damage are frequent results, along with death. |
Why do our parents starve to death? Because the facility operator does not provide our parents with assistance in eating. The food tray comes and is left at bedside, but all the debilitated patient can do look at the meal. No one assists the patient in eating!
| Pressure sores Pressure sores are also called bedsores or decubitus ulcers. Any bedfast or debilitated patient is at risk of developing these skin wounds. But each nursing home knows that they are supposed to conduct regular skin checks looking for early pressure sores, and to promptly adjust the plan for care and treatment in order to prevent the progression of pressure sores. There is no reason for pressure sores to reach "stage 3" or "stage 4" as where the muscle or bone is exposed to the air and infection. Yet severe pressure sores are one of the most frequently occurring injuries in nursing homes. |
| Over-medication The improper use in nursing facilities of psychoactive medication has diminished considerably since 1987. But medication for facility convenience is persistent, and its effects are disastrous. Our elderly parents should be stimulated, not sedated. Sedation leads to inactivity and depression, result in lack of mobility, pressure sores, pneumonia, and lethargy with loss of appetite. Many, if not most physicians are wholly uneducated and untrained in the effects and side effects of commonly prescribed medications such as benadryl, valium, or haldol. While benadryl and valium are among the most commonly prescribed medications in the younger segments of our population, they should not be prescribed to our elderly. Haldol also has its place in the treatment of some patients, but unfortunately physicians do not know about available alternatives, and do not appreciate the potentially disastrous side effects which may be triggered by such medication. |
Physicians are unaccustomed to the requirements for informed consent to prescribe psychoactive medication in skilled nursing facilities. Generally, such requirements do not extend into other types of health facilities, and physicians feel empowered to medicate patients without patient or family consent.
| Miscellaneous The list is seemingly endless: physical beatings; burn injuries; severe bowel impactions; maggot infestations and other parasitic infestations in body cavities; unnoticed and therefore unaddressed infections; unnoticed and unnaddressed vascular impairment leading to gangrene and amputation; and ultimately, death. |