Chicago Nursing Home Abuse Lawyer Blog

Seven nursing home residents and one nursing home worker are dead, following a shootout at a US nursing home. The deadly attack happened on Sunday when Robert Stewart entered the Pinelake Health and Rehab Center, which houses numerous Alzheimer’s patients, and began shooting at people.

Nursing home residents that died ranged in age from 78 to 98. They are Louise Decker, Margaret Johnson, John Goldston, Bessie Hedrick, Jesse Musser, Lillian Dunn, and Tessie Garner. Nurse Jerry Avant also died from his wounds.

Police believe that Stewart may have been targeting his estranged wife, Wanda Luck, who is a nurse at the long-term care facility. The shooting rampage stopped after lone Police Officer Justine Garner entered the premises and shot him in his upper torso.

Stewart, who is receiving medical attention at a local prison, was arraigned on Monday on first-degree murder charges and a felony charge of assaulting a law enforcement official.

Nursing Home Security
It is important that all US nursing homes provide the proper security measures to keep residents safe from dangerous persons both outside the premise and within the facility. Families entrust workers at long-term care facilities to take care of their sick or elderly loved ones and not place them in harm's way.

If someone you love was abused, neglected, assaulted, raped, molested, or robbed by a nursing home worker or by an intruder to the nursing home, or if your loved one was hurt or died in a violent crime because he or she managed to leave a long-term care facility unattended, you may have grounds for filing a nursing home neglect claim or wrongful death lawsuit.

Some security measures that nursing homes might want to consider implementing:
• A registration system that documents anyone entering or exiting the building
• Security cameras
• Alarm systems
• Door locks
• Security guards
• Pre-screening (including criminal background checks) of nursing home workers

Gunman's estranged wife worked at N.C. nursing home, CBC News, March 30, 2009

Marital discord suspected as motive in North Carolina nursing home rampage, Associated Press, March 30, 2009

Related Web Resources:
Pinelake Health and Rehab, Peak Resources

Nursing Home Overview, Medicare.gov

Continue reading " Seven Nursing Home Residents Killed in Gunman Attack at Long-Term Care Facility " »

In Illinois’s DuPage County, Attorney Joseph Birkett is asking the Illinois Department of Aging to establish an Elder Abuse Fatality Review Team to investigate claims involving nursing home residents 60 years of age and older that may be the victims of physical abuse in local long-term care facilities or in home health-care environments. If the state approves the program, members would be allowed access to nursing home records that are normally kept private. The team would be made up of people from the state attorney’s office, the DuPage County coronor, the sheriff, nursing home groups, and state and county senior citizens groups.

Earlier this month, 23-year-old Heidi Leon, a DuPage County nursing home worker, was charged with criminal neglect of a nursing home patient, criminal neglect of an elderly person, and obstruction of justice. Leon is the nursing home worker who is accused of failing to check on 89-year-old Sarah Wentworth, an Itasca nursing home resident, after she triggered a door alarm while exiting the facility. Wentworth, an Alzheimer’s patient, was found frozen to death outside the nursing home. Leon is also accused of lying to police to cover up the incident. Her family is suing the Arbor of Itasca nursing home for her wrongful death.

Birkett says claims that would be under review include a case in which an elderly person in a domestic living situation may have been overdosed with medication. In Kane County, a similar fatality review team has already been set up to examine cases involving seniors that died while receiving care in home situations and retirement homes. The team was established after a woman was found in a private home living on soiled sheets. She was also malnourished. Her two daughters were charged with criminally neglecting an elderly person.

Nursing workers and caregivers at Illinois nursing homes, retirement homes, and in private residents are supposed to treat their residents with respect and provide them with the care that they need. Abuse or neglect of an elderly person can be grounds for a nursing home abuse or neglect lawsuit, as well as criminal charges.

Abuse of DuPage elderly to get closer scrutiny, Chicago Tribune, March 6, 2009

Illinois nurse’s assistant charged in freezing death of elderly woman, NYDailyNews.com, March 3, 2009

Related Web Resources:
Caregiver Watching TV Left Patient to Freeze Outside, NBC Chicago, February 20, 2009

The Arbor of Itasca

Continue reading " DuPage County Establishing Team to Investigate Allegations of Elder Abuse of Seniors in Local Nursing Homes, Private Residences, and Retirement Facilities " »

The widow of a TBI nursing home patient who died after swallowing numerous foreign objects, including closed catsup packets, plastic bags, paper towels, and candy wrappers, has been awarded $11 million for his wrongful death. This is the largest verdict that a jury has ever awarded to a plaintiff against a US assisted living facility.

Earl Scherrer was just 36 when he died in May 7, 2006. He sustained a serious traumatic brain injury during a car crash in 2006 and went into a coma. Although doctors did not expect him to recover, his wife Lydia insisted that he remain on life support.

16 months later, he began to come out of his coma and with her help slowly started to speak. Lydia spent hours helping her husband with his recovery and she also relied on US nursing homes to provide needed, full-time care. She visited him regularly for years.

On April 7, 2006, Lydia admitted Earl into Liberty Manor Residence. The long-term care facility claimed to provide 24-hour care. On May 7, the facility called her to tell her that her husband had been throwing up. She retrieved her husband from the home and gave him a bath. He started throwing up black matter and died.

According to autopsy results, Earl had ingested a number of items that had gotten lodged in his small intestines and stomach. The medical examiner found that these foreign objects contributed to her husband’s death, resulting in hypertensive heart disease. The verdict awards $5 million to Lydia, $2 million to the decedent, and $4 million for damages.

TBI Nursing Home Patients
Many TBI patients have to stay in US nursing homes because they require 24-hour, specialized care that cannot be provided by family members. These nursing home residents often require ongoing supervision and they may need helping eating, using the bathroom, getting changed, walking, or communicating. When failure to provide this care due to nursing home abuse or neglect leads to serious injuries or death, the US nursing home can be held liable for personal injury or wrongful death.

Arizona Jury Awards Landmark $11 Million Verdict in Assisted Living Case, Yahoo, March 20, 2009

Caregiving Solutions, AGIS

Related Web Resource:

What is Traumatic Brain Injury?, CDC

In the US Senate, Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Senator Herb Kohl (D-Wis) have reintroduced a bill mandating that all long-term care employee applicants who would work directly with patients undergo national criminal background checks. The bill is the Patient Safety and Abuse Prevention Act of 2009. Senator Kohl is the chairman of the Special Committee on Aging.

The measure provides a federal component that would mandate that all long-term care employee applicants be screened against the FBI’s national database. This will hopefully decrease the number of nursing home abuse and neglect incidents, which unfortunately seems to be a regular occurrence in a number of US nursing homes and private residences where professional caregivers are sometimes brought in to care for a sick or frail person.

The bill expands upon a three-year demonstration project in seven states that prevented 9,500 applicants with histories of abuse or violent crimes from getting to work with elderly people or people with disabilities. It would create a three-year grant program that would allow the states to obtain funding to pay for FBI background checks. The bill has the approval of nursing home associations, AARP, 41 state attorneys general, and nursing home reform advocates.

Background Checks in US Nursing Homes
Already, there are a number of US states, including Illinois, that require nursing homes to run background checks on potential long-term care employee candidates. Unfortunately, this process doesn’t always weed out everyone who could potentially abuse, neglect, or assault a nursing home resident.

Nursing home abuse and neglect is a serious problem that is affecting the well-being of our sick and our elderly.

Long-term care background checks bill reintroduced in Senate, McKnights.com, March 19, 2009

Senators Reintroduce Patient Safety and Abuse Prevention Act,The Future of Aging Blog, March 19, 2009

Related Web Resources:
Patient Safety and Abuse Prevention Act of 2009, Govtrack.US

United States Special Committee on Aging

Continue reading " US Senators Reintroduce Bill Requiring Long-Term Care Workers to Undergo Criminal Background Checks " »

The Associated Press says that out of all the US states, the state of Illinois has the most number of mentally ill patients under age 65 living in its nursing homes. In 2007, there were 12,736 mentally ill young adults and middle aged residents residing in Illinois nursing homes. One reason there are so many mental patients in Illinois long-term care facilities is because the state has closed down seven state-run mental hospitals since 1980. This only left 1,480 public hospital beds, which is why so many of these patients are now living in nursing homes.

However, placing younger, stronger mentally ill patients with elderly ones can sometimes lead to deadly results, especially if a younger patient is suffering from bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, or depression and the older resident is physically weaker. For example, in one fatal nursing home incident, a 77-year-old Alzheimer’s patient was murdered while in his nursing home bed when his roommate smashed his face with a clock radio. The man who killed him was a mentally ill patient who was 30 years younger than him.

In an Illinois nursing home sexual assault incident, a young adult patient with bipolar disorder was charged with raping a 69-year-old female nursing home resident. An investigation found that the Elgin nursing home knew about his violent history yet failed to properly supervise him.

Unfortunately, this continues to be a risk that older nursing home residents face when placed in homes with younger patients that are suffering from serious mental illnesses. 9% of the 1.4 million nursing home residents living in the US are middle age and younger mentally ill patients. Last year, there were close to 125,000 mentally ill patients younger than age 65 living in US long-term care facilities—that’s 41% more than in 2002. Yet the government is currently not keeping track of how many younger mentally ill patients have harmed elderly nursing home residents.

Illinois nursing homes are supposed to protect all of their residents from becoming the victims of violent crimes. They are also supposed to make sure that each of their residents get the proper, specific care that they need. Failure to do either can be grounds for an Illinois nursing home abuse or neglect lawsuit.

Ill. has most mentally ill in nursing homes, STLToday.com/Associated Press, March 19, 2009

Nursing home patients endangered by mentally ill, Daily Herald, March 19, 2009

Related Web Resource:
Nursing Homes in Illinois

Continue reading " Illinois Nursing Homes House More Mentally Ill Patients Under Age 65 than Long-Term Care Facilities in Other US States " »

An 87-year-old woman died on Friday in a hit-and-run accident after she had fled the nursing home where she was staying. Now, the family of Florence Warren say they plan on suing the Good Samaritan Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation Center for wrongful death for allowing her to escape the premises.

Warren was relocated to the nursing home this month so she could be placed in a locked-down ward that was supposed to be secure. Warren, who was suffering from the early stages of dementia, had a record of fleeing care facilities and her daughter says that the nursing home was made aware of this. Warren was also was in physical pain because of her osteoporosis.

According to police, Warren managed to disable an alarm located on the sliding glass door in her nursing home room and then walked up the long driveway to the road. Someone later saw her lying on the road. She was transported to a hospital where she died from her injuries. The driver of the vehicle that struck Warren has not been apprehended.

Not only are US nursing homes supposed to make sure that patients are not injured or abused while staying at a long-term care facility, but they are supposed to make sure that residents are protected from other elements that could cause physical harm. For example, while security measures must be in place to make sure that no one hurts the resident staying at a nursing home, safety measures must also implemented to make sure that nursing home residents do not leave the premises unsupervised.

Many nursing home patients are at a home to begin with because they require constant, supervised care. Failure to provide this ongoing attention and medical care to a nursing home resident can be grounds for a nursing home neglect lawsuit.

Family of hit-and-run victim to sue nursing home, ChronicleOnline.com, March 17, 2009

Related Web Resources:
Dementia, Medline Plus

Dementia: What are the Common Signs?, Family Doctor.org

A bill before the Illinois General Assembly would let state regulators return fines paid by nursing homes for abuse or neglect if they use the money to improve patient care. However, Senate Bill 321 is generating outrage from opponents.

According to Wendy Meltzer, the director of the Illinois Citizens for Better Care in Chicago, it takes away the “financial disincentive for bad behavior.” Meltzer is questioning the morality of giving back fine money that an Illinois nursing home had paid for abusing, neglecting, or causing the wrongful death of a patient.

Illinois Senator Dan Kotowski, who sponsored the bill, says this is a way to make sure that the nursing homes fix the problems that caused such incidents to occur in the first place. Following a meeting with the bill’s opponents earlier this month, however, Kotowski said he is open to changing the legislation.

Meltzer says most nursing home fines are too small to really affect an Illinois nursing home’s financial well-being. In 2007, Illinois nursing homes were fined $3.5 million. According to Public Health spokesperson Melaney Arnold, nursing home fines generally range from $10,000 to $300,00 for violations. The llinois Department of Public Health can impose state finds but it can only recommend federal fines.

The bill also calls for taking away funds from a special Illinois fund that pays for Public Health monitors and receivers. Monitors stay at nursing homes where there have been problems to observe patient care, while receivers take temporary charge of Illinois nursing homes that are “in trouble” because of the poor care they’ve provided.

Meltzer argues that nursing homes are there to provide a certain standard of care to patients and that they shouldn’t have to require a refund of their fine to finally begin providing the kind of care that is mandated by Illinois law.

Nursing Home Care
Illinois nursing homes are in business to provide elderly and sick residents with the proper medical care and attention that they need. They should be fined and cited anytime a nursing home patient gets injured, his or her condition deteriorates, or he or she dies because workers were neglectful, abusive, or reckless and the nursing home violated its duty of care to the resident.

Opponents of nursing home bill outraged, Sj-r.com, March 7, 2009

Who Regulates Nursing Homes?, Illinois Department of Public Health

Relate Web Resource:

Illinois Citizens for Better Care

Continue reading " Illinois Bill Would Refund Fines for Nursing Home Abuse and Neglect " »

The children of a 79-year-old female nursing home resident who died in November 2007 are suing a nursing home for her wrongful death. Valeree Espinoza and David Vestal claim that while their mother Shirley Marion Renner died from lung ailments and a heart attack, her death was actually caused by the poor nursing care she received, which caused her health to deteriorate.

Their wrongful death complaint contends that nursing home neglect lead to Renner suffering from dehydration, malnutrition, and bed sores, which where poorly treated. The nursing home neglect lawsuit also claims she experienced emotional and physical pain, abandonment, desperation, anguish, helplessness, shock, spinal injuries, neck injuries, missing and broken teeth, bruises, fear of death, and eventually, death. She also may have been administered psychotropic medication that had an adverse affect on her ability to be lucid.

During the two years that Renner lived at the nursing home, her daughter says that her weight went from 110 pounds to around 92 pounds.

The nursing home where she was residing eventually changed ownership and soon after, her family moved her to a different facility. While the new nursing home owners claim that they did not take over supervision at the home until nearly a month after Renner was discharged, the plaintiffs’ attorney contends that the new nursing home owners had responsibility over the patients and their care when they took over the long-term care home.

Negligent Nursing Care
When nursing home workers fail to do their jobs correctly and a resident suffers as a result, the patient and his or her family may be entitled to nursing home neglect compensation. The reason that nursing homes exist is to make sure that a sick or elderly resident gets the specialized care that he or she needs. Abusing or neglecting a nursing home patient is a crime and a violation of his or her rights. Failure to treat bed sores, medication errors, poor diet, and failure to maintain a patient's hygiene are some examples of nursing home neglect that can lead to health complications and even the death of a patient.

Nursing home sued for wrongful death, Appealdemocrat.com, March 4, 2009

Related Web Resources:
Deadly Neglect, ReadersDigest.com

Nursing Home Overview, Medicare.gov

In Cook County Circuit Court, an Illinois nursing home lawsuit filed on behalf of former nursing home resident Edna Kneidek is suing the Lexington Health Care Center of Lake Zurich for nursing home negligence. The 83-year-old woman fractured her hip while living at the long-term care facility and her injury left her with permanent immobility.

Kneidek moved into the Lake County nursing home on December 29, 2006. She was suffering from dementia. According to her Chicago nursing home neglect lawyer, the nursing home determined that the elderly resident was at risk for fall accidents. Yet from February through August 2007, Kneidek fell five times while at the long-term care facility.

In one fall accident, she shattered her left hip and had to undergo extensive hip repair surgery. She also had pneumonia.

Her Chicago nursing home neglect attorney says that the Lake Zurich nursing home not only failed to properly evaluate the elderly woman’s risk for falls or protect her from fall accidents, but they were delayed in their response to her complaints that she was in pain.

Hip Fractures and the Elderly
One of the most common causes of a fractured hip is fall accidents. A hip fracture is an injury that will nearly always require hospitalization and surgery. According to the Encyclopedia on the KOMOTV.com Web site, it is the second common reason that patients are admitted to US nursing homes (about 60,000-related admissions annually).

One reason elderly people are prone to hip fractures is that their bones are more fragile, with many patients suffering from osteoporosis. Not only is a hip facture extreme painful, but it can lead to other complications, including agitation, confusion, depression, the inability to be able to walk properly again, bedsores, and a loss of independence.

Nursing home sued over alleged negligence, Lake County, News-Sun, March 10, 2009

Hip Fracture, KomoTV.com

Related Web Resources:
Lexington Health Care Center of Lake Zurich

Best Practices for Elderly Hip Fracture Patients

Police have charged a former nursing home worker with the death of a patient with cerebral palsy. Robert Young died on November 12, 2007 while staying at the care facility Standifer Place. While the county medical examiner did not perform an autopsy initially because he was told that the cerebral palsy patient died when he had a seizure that caused him to fall and fracture his skull, Young’s family members were suspicious about the reported cause of death.

Young’s body was exhumed last year. Autopsy findings showed that he actually died form blunt force trauma to the head. Young’s sister sued the nursing home and the state’s Department of Human Services for his wrongful death, accusing them of working together to conceal her brother’s actual cause of death and for over a month, failing to notify his relatives that he had died. The agency says it tried to notify Young's next of kin but was unable to reach them. The agency designed and carried out its own plans to bury him.

Last week, Walter Small, who worked as a certified nursing assistant for the nursing home, was charged with criminally negligent homicide related to Young’s death. Small had been fired soon after Young’s death.

Young’s sister is seeking at least $30 million from the US nursing home and $900,000 from the Department of Human Services. The family is accusing them of “negligence” in the wake of the nursing home resident's death.

Caring for a nursing home patient is a huge responsibility. Nursing homes must make sure that the workers they hire are not dangerous persons who are liable to cause injury, abuse, death, or neglect to a resident. If a resident is harmed in any way while staying at a long-term care facility, the nursing home can be held liable for personal injury, wrongful death, nursing home abuse, or nursing home neglect.

Chattanooga: Man charged in death of nursing home patient, Times Free Press, March 7, 2009

Former Nursing Home Worker Charged in Death, Newschannel9.com, March 6, 2009

Related Web Resources:
Read the Complaint (PDF)
Senate Special Committee on Aging

A woman whose mentally disabled brother choked to death while eating dinner at a Tinley Park facility in February 2008 has filed a Chicago wrongful death lawsuit against the state of Illinois and a doctor at the Howe Development Center. Evelyn Kasprak’s complaint accuses Dipankar Banerjee, the facility’s on-duty doctor at the time of the incident, and other staff members of failing to clear Kenneth Kasprak’s breathing or attempting to revive him with CPR after food got stuck in his throat dinner and he began to choke.

Kenneth, who was using medication that made him more prone to choking, had choked on other occasions, and Evelyn’s Chicago wrongful death attorney says Banerjee should have known that the 67-year-old patient might choke again. Her Chicago wrongful death lawsuit also accuses the state of Illinois of failing to train two of the Howe workers who were on duty at the time of the choking accident on how to use an emergency system. Attempts to revive the mentally disabled patient reportedly did not occur until the paramedics arrived at the scene minutes later.

Also named as defendants in the Chicago wrongful death complaint are the two Howe staffers, the Illinois Department of Human Services, and DHS Secretary Carol Adams. Kasprak, whose mental disabilities included a mood disorder, lived at the Tinley Park facility for 11 years.

Some 300 people with severe developmental disabilities reside at Howe. The Tinley Park facility and its mental health center have come under fire over the last couple of years. Howe lost its federal funding in 2007 for providing substandard patient care. Last September, the DHS said that it was planning to shut down the facility in July 2009.

Family of Howe resident files wrongful death lawsuit against state, Southtown Star, March 3, 2009

Tinley Park facility sued in patient's choking death, Chicago Tribune, March 3, 2009

Howe Developmental Center in Tinley Park to close, Chicago Tribune, September 5, 2008

Related Web Resources:
Read the Complaint (PDF)

State-Operated Developmental Centers, Illinois Department of Human Services

Continue reading " State of Illinois and Tinley Park Doctor Sued for Chicago Wrongful Death After Mentally Disabled Man Chokes During Dinner " »

According to the National Center for Health Statistics, more than 1 in 10 US nursing home residents in 2004 was suffering from pressure sores. In the NCHS Data brief, published in February 2009, information from the National Nursing Home Survey regarding 2004 is provided, including:

• Approximately 159,000 nursing home residents in the US had bed sores.
• The post common kind of pressure sore was the Stage 2 pressure ulcer.
• Nursing home residents ages 64 and younger were more likely to suffer from pressure sores than older nursing home residents.
• Nursing home patients that stayed in US nursing homes for less than a year were more prone to decubitus ulcers than longer-term residents.
• Out of every five nursing home residents that had recently lost weight, one of the patients would have pressure sores.

Pressure Sores
Also known as pressure ulcers, decubitus ulcers, and bed sores, these wounds can occur when there is pressure on the skin that doesn’t get relieved. Common sites of pressure sores on the body include the heel, elbow, back, hip, back of the head, and shoulder.

There are four stages of pressure sores:
Stage 1: Skin that is persistently red in color.
Stage 2: Some of the skin’s thickness is lost. A blister, abrasion, or slight crater may appear on the skin.
Stage 3: The appearance of a deep crater shows a loss of the skin’s full thickness.
Stage 4: Bone or muscle is exposed through the sore.

Bed sores can be a dangerous wound for sick or elderly nursing home patients. The sores can be treated if they are detected right away but delayed treatment can lead to the decubitus ulcer reaching a more advanced stage.

Common ways to prevent bed sores include:
• Using clean, dry sheets
• A nutritious diet
• Softly padded wheelchairs
• Making sure the skin is dry and clean
• Regularly turning patients that can’t move and changing their position

If your loved one has bed sores because workers at a Chicago nursing home neglected to provide him or her with the proper care, there may be grounds to file an Illinois nursing home neglect lawsuit.

Pressure Ulcers Among Nursing Home Residents: United States, 2004, NCHS Data Brief, February 14, 2009

What are Bed Sores?, Mama's Health

Continue reading " Bed Sores A Problem in US Nursing Homes, Says the National Center for Health Statistics " »