Nursing Home Abuse Lawyer Blog

My personal experience as a Missouri Nursing Home Lawyer is that far too many nursing home residents are overmedicated by those responsible for providing quality care. In my job I often meet with residents and their families in nursing homes. On some of those occasions, the residents simply could not wake up. Their eyes fluttered as though they were struggling to wake up and participate in the conversation happening around them. Sadly, the government has determined that my experience is not unique.

The U.S. Department of Health and Senior Services recently prepared a report entitled Medicare Atypical Antipsychotic Drug Claims For Elderly Nursing Home Residents that found that too many nursing home institutions failed to comply with regulations designed to prevent overmedication. It is well known that prescribing antipsychotic medication to elderly residents with dementia is potentially lethal, yet 88% of these individuals receive such prescriptions.

Family members must make certain that they know what medications their loved one is receiving. They must educate themselves on the medications and the proper dosages. They must regularly ask questions of the caregivers and insist upon answers. Family members must know what the possible side effects are and should closely monitor their loved one for any signs of side effects.

Why would a nursing home overmedicate a resident? First, to be fair to the nursing home industry, many times the overmedication is completely unintentional. Elderly residents are more much more susceptible to overmedication than are younger people. The second reason is an indictment of the nursing home industry. Overmedicated residents do complain and are, therefore, easier to care for with a reduced staff. Residents who ask to be taken to the restroom, or who need more water or need help walking down the hallway often require assistance from staff members. When a nursing home operates on reduced staff (as most nursing homes do) drugged residents are easier to manage than those who are alert and active.

If you are concerned about the care your loved one is receiving in a nursing home, call our St. Louis personal injury lawyer David Terry for a free consultation at 1-888-317-2525.

In yet another example of taking advantage of an elderly person, we look to Montana where an eighty-two year old nursing home resident was apparently supporting a woman and her two children, without knowing it.

Jerome Wilson lives at Park Place Health Care Center in Great Falls, Montana. He suffers from dementia and Parkinson's disease. Somehow, Tamara Belcourt reportedly managed to get appointed as Wilson's Power of Attorney, despite the fact that he was unable to consent to the appointment.

In March 2010, a case worker interviewed Mr. Wilson and determined that he was delinquent in his payments to the nursing home in which he lived but he was unaware of his financial situation. The case worker consulted Belcourt and discovered that Belcourt had used Wilson's monthly income from Social Security and a pension plan to support her two children, reportedly withdrawing more than $11,500 from Wilson's bank accounts. None of the money withdrawn was used to support Wilson.

Belcourt faces charges of felony elder abuse and/or exploitation. Her bond is set at $5,000.

A laundry room worker at Park Place Health Care Center, a nursing home facility located in Great Falls, Montana, was arrested on July 21, 2009, for elder abuse, six counts of misdemeanor theft, and six felony counts of possession of dangerous drugs for allegedly stealing prescription drugs from a helpless nursing home resident.

Keiko Douglas, 33, admitted to police that she removed a prescription medication patch from a resident's arm six times since June 27, 2009. The patch delivered Fentanyl, a pain-killer, to the resident. Nurses at the facility noticed that the patch kept disappearing and continuously checked on the resident. Douglas was seen leaving the resident's room on July 21, even though she did not have a reason to be in the room, and the patch was missing again.

Douglas' bond is set at $5,000.

Doris Rowe, 87, entered Evergreen Bozeman Health and Rehabilitation for a short rehabilitation stay. Instead, the stay cost Mrs. Rowe her life and her devastated family searches for answers.

On June 13, 2007, Mrs. Rowe was found unconscious and bleeding from her head. She died the next day from a cerebral hemorrhage. The fall was the fourth documented fall during her 35 day residency at the facility. She struck her head in three of those falls. The family alleges that the facility failed to prevent the falls, that the staff failed to respond to calls for restroom assistance, causing Mrs. Rowe to attempt her own toilet transfer, and that the staff was untrained and unavailable a great deal of the time. George Rowe, her husband who was also a resident for a portion of the time that Mrs. Rowe was at the facility, waited two days for a glass of water and saw the facility staff drop Mrs. Rowe twice. The lawsuit also alleges a large turnover in employees.

During a state inspection, the State of Montana found 65 pages of deficiencies, among which were restraining an ambulatory resident for no medical purpose, leaving fall-risk residents alone without restroom access, providing drugs over maximum dosage, and insufficient food to meet patient needs.

Another resident at the facility was found with head injuries consistent with a beating. As a result, Joshua Fowler, an Evergreen employee with a prior assault charge, was arrested for felony elder abuse. A lawsuit is currently pending against the facility for the incident and the family alleges that Evergreen failed to perform a background check on Mr. Fowler and failed to follow proper hiring procedures.

Interestingly, state regulations on Montana nursing homes were last updated in 1972. There have been attempts to update the state regulations, but those attempts have failed. The current laws were drafted before CNAs even existed, thus, only one aide is required for every 14 residents.