Nursing Home & Elder Abuse | InjuryBoard Cook County

A police raid on an East Peoria nursing home resulted in the arrests of four residents and one staff member on outstanding warrants. The four residents, all under the age of 60, were wanted on a variety of court charges. Police also identified a number of other residents who were wanted on other charges, but were not arrested because police did not have arrest warrants.The raid came as an...

Continue article

Upset that they had not been paid in months and that paychecks were bouncing, the entire staff of certified nursing assistants walked off the job at the Contiental Care Center on Western Avenue in Chicago on Friday.Certified nursing assistants provide much of the day-to-day care at nursing homes, including the turning and repositioning which is so crucial to the prevention of pressure...

Continue article

A North Carolina nursing home has been fined by the state after a resdient in the facility died when she was suffocated in between her mattress and the raised bed rails of her bed. The state found that the facility was improperly using the bed rails as a means of restraint. Six other residents were found to have bed rails in place which were not ordered by a physician.There are two major risks...

Continue article

A recent report is touting the use of ultrasound to detect bed sores, or pressure ulcers. Bed sores are created by unrelieved pressure on bony prominences of the body such as the heels, elbows, and sacrum. Unrelieved pressure results in tissue death which in turn leads to the skin opening which permits the entry of infecting bacteria.Bed sores are enormously painful and can ultimately lead to...

Continue article

A Peoria nursing home which housed 6 convicted sex offenders was fined by the Illinois Department of Public Health for failing to prevent and properly monitor the actions of one of them for inappropriate behaviors towards his fellow residents. The sex offender, 56 years old, had been admitted to the nursing home for treatment of conditions relating to a stroke and mental illness.The actions...

Continue article

The Illinois Department of Public Health fined a Chicago Ridge Nursing Home after a resident there was served solid foods. The resident had recently received a g-tube to provide him with nutrition and was not supposed to receive solid foods. The g-tube was placed because the resident was no longer safe to swallow solid foods.The CNA on duty provided the resident with a meal tray, even though...

Continue article

A Boston-area nursing home has been sued for neglect after untreated pressure sores led to the amputation of a resident's leg. The staff had advised the resident's family that the decline in their mother's health was due to her body shutting down as she was near death.After she was admitted to a hospital, the family discovered that their mother's decline in health was due to untreated pressure...

Continue article

One resident was killed and several residents were injured when fire swept through a North Carolina assisted living facility. Initial reports about the incident described the fire as an explosion.Besides the fatality, several residents were taken to hospitals for burns and smoke inhalation.Assisted living facilities are similar to nursing homes but are not designed to provide the same level of...

Continue article

An Alabama nursing home was cited for inadequate staff training which resulted in a resident's death. The resident fell from a shower bed while being assisted by only one staff member when the bed required the assistance of two staff members.The resident suffered a broken neck as a result of the fall and died two days later. In addition to the citation for inadequate training, the facility was...

Continue article

A Cicero nursing home was cited by the Illinois Department of Public Health after a resident was injured in a fall at the facility. IDPH found that the nursing home failed to make a proper assessment of the resident's fall risk and failed to update the care plan in light of additional falls the resident had at the facility before the one in which he was injured.The resident had to be...

Continue article

The director of nursing at a Pennsylvania nursing home was indicted recently for neglect in the care of a resident. Also included in the charges were accusations of falsifying and tampering with records.The resident had a head wound which was left untreated and became infested with maggots.This story is disturbing on so many levels, the most obvious being what happened to this gentlemen.The...

Continue article

A Wilmington nursing home was cited by the Illinois Department of Public Health after a complaint was made regarding the care of the residents there. IDPH found that a doctor's order for a consultation with a wound specialist had not been carried out and the nurse hired as the wound care nurse did not have the proper training.The resident whose condition was the subject of the citation was...

Continue article

An Alzheimer's patient in an Indiana nursing home was found frozen to death on the ground outside the facility. He was able to leave the facility unnoticed and froze when he was left outside overnight in sub-zero temperatures.The cause of death for the resdient was hypothermia.One of the main reasons that people with family members with Alzheimer's seek to admit them to nursing homes is to...

Continue article

A Chicago nursing home was cited by the Illinois Department of Public Health after it was discovered that some residents were being awoken at 4:30 a.m. so that they could be dressed and in the day room before the day shift arrived. Interviews with staff members indicated that the night shift was instrcuted to get 2-3 residents ready for the day before the day shift arrived.The residents...

Continue article

A resident in a Cicero nursing home was injured after being attacked by a fellow resident. The resident who assaulted him had been released to the nursing home from the Illinois Department of Corrections. During the months prior to the assault, the recently released resident had been observed using street drugs such as crack cocaine and marijuana, hitting other residents, and engaging in...

Continue article