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

Nineteen-year-old Brianna Broitzman told a judge this week she is not responsible for physically and sexually abusing cognitively impaired residents at the Good Samaritan nursing home in the Albert Lea, Minn., nursing home where she worked as a nursing aide. Broitzman is one of four teenagers charged with abusing 15 residents at the home. She and former coworker Ashton Larson, who was 18 at the time of the incident, are the only two being charged as adults.

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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.

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Canadian officials blame inadequate staff-to-patient ratios for overworking, under training and simply frustrating Nova Scotia nursing home staff members, causing them to be abusive to their patients, according to The Canadian Press. As a result, 30 incidents of physical, financial or emotional abuse by staff members were reported over a one-year period.

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Former nurse’s aide Jaclyn Dawn VanWinkle doesn’t understand why her dancing and singing to a nursing home patient has caused such a ruckus, according to Lexington (Ken.) Living. The 25-year-old woman was arrested and charged with wanton neglect of an 84-year-old resident at Madison Manor Nursing Home in Richmond, Ken., where VanWinkle was employed. At least eight other employees face criminal charges, according to the report.

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An Office of Health Facility Complaints Investigative Report by the Minnesota Department of Public Health dated May 7, 2008, revealed that three of the residents who were abused by employees at the Good Samaritan Society nursing home in Albert Lea, Minn., in the much-publicized “abuse-for-thrills” case are deceased.

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Choosing a skilled nursing facility for a family member can be a daunting task. A web site, MemberoftheFamily.net, aims to help by offering free, easy-to-understand reports based on government surveys of approximately 16,000 nursing homes across the country. The site allows readers to review past and present state survey results, fire safety violations and substantiated complaints for all Medicare/Medicaid-certified nursing homes anywhere in the United States.

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There is a horrifying report out of Minnesota today about nursing home residents abused by their caregivers. The patients, all suffering from Alzheimer’s disease or dementia, were teased, spit on, and sexually assaulted. The Associated Press report said four nursing assistants were involved.

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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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