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

An investigation into the death of Sarah Wentworth has taken an even more tragic turn. The 89-year-old woman was found dead outside in her Itasca, Illinois nursing home’s courtyard earlier this month wearing nothing but a hospital gown. Since she suffered from dementia, which can make its victims prone to wandering, she wore an ankle bracelet that would trigger an alarm if she crossed the threshold to the outdoors. So why didn’t anyone seem to know how Wentworth wandered out in the first place?

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“Every day, American families face difficult decisions about whether to move a loved one into a nursing home. There are nearly 17,000 nursing homes in the United States that currently care for 1.6 million residents — a figure expected to quadruple to 6.6 million residents by 2050. The quality of care provided by these nursing homes has been the subject of much scrutiny in recent years.” – U.S. Congress Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Chairman Henry A. Waxman, 110th Congress

According to the National Center on Elder Abuse (NCEA), no one knows precisely how many older Americans are being abused, neglected, or exploited. This is because there are no official national statistics.

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