Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, P.C.

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.

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A watchdog group that advocates for the developmentally disabled is pressuring Nebraska state leaders to look into the care at the troubled state-run Beatrice State Developmental Center, according to the Fremont Tribune.

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Only four people managed to escape. But the others – 23 people who were unable to walk or crawl to safety – perished in a devastating fire at a government nursing home in Podyeisk, Russia, according to CBS News.

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Jenette Sloan went every day to the Williamsburg Village nursing home in Muncie, Indiana, to visit her 94-year-old mother, Verna Talbott. But one day in June 2007, Sloan was startled to see her mother drugged to unconsciousness with a red, swollen face, according to The Star Press. Sloan questioned nursing home employees but no one would tell her what had happened to her mother. Shortly after she left, one nurse called to tell her that they were sending Talbott to the hospital because she was hit by one of the certified nursing assistants (CNA).

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Wes Bledsoe, the founder of the watchdog group A Perfect Cause, returns to Albert Lea, Minnesota, this week to meet again with families of victims allegedly abused during the widely publicized “attacks for thrills” incident at the Good Samaritan Society nursing home, according to the Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota Star Tribune. While in town, Bledsoe also will attend the arraignments of two of the nurses charged with in the crimes.

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When investigators tested the opened tub of King Nut peanut butter from a Minnesota nursing home, it confirmed their fears. The peanut butter was contaminated with salmonella – the same exact strain of the bacteria as the one linked to three deaths and more than 400 reported cases of salmonella poising in 43 states, according to the Minneapolis-St. Paul Minnesota Star Tribune. An elderly Minnesota woman who had other health problems was among the victims who died.

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Dean Cole’s dementia was getting unmanageable for his wife, Virginia, so on Dec. 8, 2006, his family moved him into Golden Living Center Greeley nursing home in Oakdale, Minn. Within 20 days he had lost 20 pounds and had slipped into a coma. A month later, the 71-year-old man was dead, according to the Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn. Star Tribune. The cause? Severe dehydration, renal failure, pneumonia and colitis.

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The physical and sexual “abuse-for-thrills” case at Good Samaritan Society nursing home in Albert Lea, Minn., was listed as “far and away the leading news story in the Albert Lea area for 2008,” by the Albert Lea Tribune.

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No one knows how 95-year-old Fannie Mae Rooks ended up outside on the night before Christmas Eve. But somehow her wheelchair had been pushed through the handicapped-accessible doors to the outdoor smoking area at Northgate Park Nursing Home in Florissant, Mo, according to Trading Markets/St. Louis Post-Dispach. Rooks was found dead in the courtyard around 2 a.m. on Christmas Eve.

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Sixty-seven-year-old Melvin Raybon laid helpless in his bed at Tucker Nursing Center in Tucker, Ga., while a bedsore grew on his left buttocks and became infected to the bone, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution. Staff at the nursing home where he lived should have turned him every two hours to prevent the massive bedsore. However employees said there simply wasn’t enough staff to meet that need. Instead, the attorney representing Raybon’s daughter said he was turned about every four hours.

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