Author Archives: Adam Peck

Hundreds of thousands of people residing in United States nursing homes, assisted living and long term care facilities are being locked up or tied to their beds or wheelchairs illegally says Peck Law Group Elder Abuse Lawyer Steven Peck.

Across the country elders and dependant adults are being routinely and illegally restrained in long term care facilities.

Care of pressure sores, decubitus ulcers and bed sores and other wounds was also found to be wanting and can lead to serious infections and death.

And despite improvements in care over the past years,elders and dependant adults in these long term care facilities have difficulty eating or swallowing, many times are found to be dehydrated and malnourished, and do not get enough help.

Statistics say that Between 20 to 40 percent of patients in more than 20,000 care homes were found not have received adequate wound care, enough food and drink or close enough observation for signs of dementia. Around 61 percent of residents also received some sort of sedative on a regular basis, many without physician orders or with physician knowledge says California Nursing Home Abuse and Neglect Attorney Steven Peck.

For the 31 percent of residents who were registered as suffering chronic pain, a large proportion of homes had failed to establish a consistent pain management plan.

A jury in has awarded $3.2 million to the family of an 88-year-old man who died of complications from an infected bedsore the size of a baseball.

The lawsuit was awarded against Pioneer Healthcare Center, a Rocky Ford nursing home.

The facility is owned by Grace Healthcare, a Chattanooga, Tenn. company with nursing homes in eight states and a total of 4,000 beds.

The lawsuit accused the nursing home of hiding the seriousness of the bedsores from the family.

Before the wound developed in late September 2010, the abused elder, who had Parkinson’s disease, could walk to the cafeteria with assistance.

Thereafter, he stopped eating, drinking and walking and became bed-bound and unresponsive.

In early October 2010, a nurse’s aide told the Elder’s son son about severe bedsores on the Elder’s buttocks and scrotum, which were infected and smelled badly. The employee said he was worried about getting fired but was fearful that the Elder would die so he spoke out.

When the family insisted that the Elder immediately be taken to a hospital, administrators protested, saying that he should be cared for at the nursing home, according to the lawsuit.

When the neglected and abused Elder was taken to a hospital, his doctor determined that he was also dehydrated and malnourished. Hospital doctors said the Elder’s death was linked to the bedsores.

Health Department officials later inspected the nursing home and cited the facility for 27 deficiencies after discovering many problems including widescale infections.

Septic infection or sepsis is a condition that can quickly get worse and can lead to death if not treated properly.

It is important to seek medical attention if you suspect the possibility of sepsis. Unfortunately, there is not a universal set of symptoms that apply to all patients with sepsis. But, when you understand how sepsis develops from infection, you will be able to recognize it when you see it. In essence, sepsis is the body’s response to infection.

Increased blood flow is what causes the redness of the inflammatory response in our body. Biologically, increasing blood circulation is an attempt to physically flush the infection out. Blood vessels in the skin dilate and the increased blood flow can cause flushing or redness of the skin. But this is not always visible in all patients with sepsis. You can see some other changes that can be related to increased blood flow.

The heart rate goes up as the heart is trying to pump more blood. If the infection is somewhere in the body that you can look at, you will see the actual inflammatory response at the site of the infection.

For example, an infection in the skin and soft tissue of the leg will cause a visible redness, warmth, swelling and pain on the surface of the leg.

A similar response happens throughout the body in sepsis, but it is more prominent at the site of the initial infection.

The heat of inflammation can be seen as increased body temperature or fever. Most patients with infection and sepsis have fever. Some elderly patients may not be able to mount a fever but you may still see them having shaking chills instead of fever.

The swelling of the inflammation in sepsis is at two levels: the organ level and the body level. The example of leg infection above shows the swelling at the organ level.

If the infection is in an internal organ, the swelling can only be seen in X-rays or CAT scans. At the body level, the increased amount of blood and inflammatory chemicals causes swelling by allowing more fluids to escape into the tissue from the blood vessels.

The anger or distress in sepsis can be seen as pain, irritability and sometimes confusion and delirium.

Although inflammatory response to sepsis is designed to fight infection, it can harm the body itself when it gets overwhelming. You can remember this by imagining the flames of the fire burning out the body itself. As the body becomes exhausted with the inflammatory response, it begins to crumble. The blood pressure may go down and the redness may turn into pale, sweaty and calmly skin. When this happens, the patient can collapse without medical support.

When you see someone with a possible infection and you detect the signs of overwhelming inflammation, you can help that person by getting them to ER right away. Please do not wait until their body is at the verge of collapse.