› $580,975,000 verdict in personal injury case
Nursing home officials did nothing to stop a male resident at a La Salle County, Illinois nursing home from sexually abusing 10 female patients and sexually soliciting several others, according to allegations in a report from the Illinois Department of Public Health.
Wandering is a common symptom of Alzheimer’s disease, dementia or other cognitive disorders. According to the Alzheimer’s Association more than 60 percent of those with the condition wander at some point and up to 70 percent of those who wander will do so again. More than 127,000 critical wandering incidents are reported each year. If not found within the first 24 hours, up to half of all persons with dementia who wander will become seriously injured or die, according to research obtained by the Alzheimer’s Association.
DuPage County, Illinois officials are stepping up their investigations into allegations of physical abuse of elderly in nursing homes and in-home health care settings, spurred in part by the horrifying story of a nursing home resident who froze to death last month after wandering outside her nursing home, according to the Chicago Tribune.
The family of Sarah Wentworth can’t imagine how the 89-year-old woman could have wandered outside the Itasca, Illinois nursing home where she lived for more than two years. Wentworth was so frail that she needed assistance just to get out of bed or change her clothes. And since she suffered from dementia, which can make those who suffer from the disease prone to wander, she also wore an ankle bracelet that sounded an alarm if she crossed through the nursing home’s doors to the outside.
Iowa lawmakers who complain about state inspectors being overly aggressive in their surveys of nursing homes have been receiving thousands of dollars in contributions from nursing home officials, according to the Chicago Tribune.
A truly disturbing report out of Illinois this week. A series of suspicious deaths at a Chicago-suburban nursing home in 2006, the so-called “mercy killings” of one nurse, now appear to be ruthless murders committed by a caregiver who became “fed up” with certain patients.
