According to police reports, the nursing home workers held down residents, put their fingers in residents’ mouths and noses to quiet their screams and cries for help, hit and rubbed their breasts and genitals, and sexually “humped” the residents. It was all done as some sort of sick on-the-job entertainment, according to coworkers’ reports.

The attack-for-thrills case has made headlines across the country and spurred the creation of an advocacy group for called Families Against Nursing Home Abuse. The group is made up of family members of victims. Jan Reshetar and Myrna Sorensen are the co-founders of the organization and have started their own blog, which can be found at FamiliesAgainstNursingHomeAbuse.Blogspot.com.

“It’s been over one year since we first got the phone call that Mom ‘may or may not be a victim of what may or may not be abuse,’” the daughter writes in her first entry, which tells the gripping story of how she copes with the realization that her mother was among those targeted by the nursing aides. “I question things now. I question what kind of world we live in. I question respect. I ask how we have lost respect for the people in their care; for each other.”

It is up to the judge to decide if the statements made by Broitzman’s coworkers can be used against her and if there is enough evidence to take the case to trial. Meanwhile, the families of the victims, such as the founder of Families Against Nursing Home Abuse, will fight for justice: “I think. I question. I wonder. I wish. I advocate. I pray. Tomorrow, I will pick up where I left off today. I will make the phone calls. I will write the letters. I will work for policy, procedure, training and laws that will help the elderly.”

SOURCE: Nursing Home Abuse › Judge to decide if nursing aide abuse case goes to trial

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DuPage County, Illinois

The freezing death of Sarah Wentworth has sent chills through the Itasca, Illinois, community where she lived – and subsequently died – at a nursing home. Wentworth suffered from dementia, which leaves its victims prone to wandering. She wore a band that would signal an alarm on the door if she wandered through it. Unfortunately, the nurses aide on duty the night Wentworth died was too caught up on a television show to pay attention to the alarm. Wentworth was left outdoors for five hours before she was found. By then it was too late and nursing home staff are being blamed for trying to cover up their negligence.

A state attorney wants to ensure more needless deaths like Wentworth’s don’t happen in nursing homes. He is urging the Illinois Department on Aging to establish an Elder Abuse Fatality Review Team to investigate claims of violence against elderly residents age 60 and older, including accessing previously restricted information such as nursing home records. The team would be made up of state attorneys, the sheriff, the county coroner, nursing home associations and senior citizen agencies.

A similar death review team was established last summer to review fatalities among senior citizens in domestic living situations. That team can investigate home care cases and retirement homes, but cannot investigate nursing home claims.

State approval for the Elder Abuse Fatality Review Team should come within the next few months. Team membership would be solicited shortly thereafter.

SOURCE: Nursing Home Abuse › State attorney hopes to form nursing home death review team

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The Canadian Health Department, which investigated 73 reports filed under the Protection of Persons in Care Act, legislation that was passed and put into practice more than a year ago, qualified 30 of those reports. No details of the types of abuse were identified, but officials said that more than half of those cases were of physical or physical and emotional abuse.

“We know the staff-patient ratio are in some cases unacceptable. There are too many patients with very high needs for the number of staff on a shift,” said Maureen MacDonald, a New Democrat member of the legislature who was quoted in the story.

Health Department director of monitoring and evaluation Donna Dill said that most of the abuse cases reported were not serious physical harm. She says most of the time staff didn’t realize they were abusing patients. “We need to work with them so they can understand what abuse is,” Dill told the news service. Only a few of the cases resulted in staff firings, she said. Most are handled through disciplinary measures and training.

The Nova Scotia Association of Health Organizations, which represents most of the area’s nursing homes, released a statement saying it is working to create abuse-free environments and is working with its members to create anti-abuse policies and procedures.

SOURCE: Nursing Home Abuse › Canada nursing home abuses linked to understaffing

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After discovering numerous bruises all over her body, the family of resident Armeda Thomas hid a video camera in her Madison Manor room. For three weeks they recorded nursing assistants physically abusing and taunting Thomas and failing to feed and clean her, according to state records. In one instance, a nursing aide was seen dancing in front of Thomas while another staff member held the resident’s arms.

The video tape showed several nursing assistants partaking in the physical abuse of Thomas. Extendicare, the Wisconsin company that owns Madison Manor, fired nine nursing assistants, made staff changes, and set up a retraining program for staff as a result of the videotape. “We do not condone this kind of behavior,” said a spokesperson for Extendicare in the report.

A spokesperson for the attorney general’s office says the investigation is ongoing and additional charges could result. The home also was cited by the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, threatening its Medicaid certification. The state later issued a statement saying that the nursing home’s management had taken steps to correct the problems.

Thomas’ family members moved Thomas home after seeing the tapes. She died last month after complications from Alzheimer’s disease.

SOURCE: Nursing Home Abuse › Nursing home aide shocked by wanton neglect charge

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Brianna Marie Broitzman, 19, and Ashton Michelle Larson, 18, are charged with assault, abuse of a vulnerable adult by a caregiver, abuse of a vulnerable adult with sexual contact, disorderly conduct, and failure to report suspected maltreatment. Broitzman and Larson are face up to a year in jail and $3,000 fine if convicted.

Prosecutors say that the women held down residents, put their fingers in residents’ mouths and noses to quiet their cries for help, hit and rubbed their breasts and genitals, and sexually “humped” some residents. The aides called the humiliating abuse, “work fun to get a good laugh,” according to reports.

Four other teenaged employees have been charged in juvenile court for failing to report the abuse.

State health department investigators reviewed the medical files of all patients who were suspected of being abused, and made personal visits to the 12 survivors. All 15 patients had some form of cognitive disorder, including Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. Many were physically disabled and almost all required assistance with activities of daily living.

Minnesota health officials told the Associated Press this week that abuse in nursing homes is rare. However, this week the department reported another case of alleged sexual, emotional and physical abuse of six resident by a nurse’s aide at a nursing home in Montevideo, Minn. The employee, who was fired, denies the allegations. Authorities say that it is unlikely the nurse’s aide will be charged as the patients suffer from cognitive disorders that limit their ability to testify.

Albert Lea has a population of 20,000. With 240 employees, Good Samaritan Society is one of the town’s largest employers.

SOURCE: Nursing Home Abuse › Three victims deceased in Albert Lea ‘abuse-for-thrills’ case

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Perhaps the most useful tool on the site is the National Watch List, which provides a listing of nursing homes cited for violations or that have received substantiated complaints. This list is broken down state by state and then alphabetically by the facility name, with color-coded warning labels and scope/severity codes.

MemberoftheFamily.net also provides an honor roll of facilities found to be deficiency-free.

The organization was founded in the mid-1990s by Dr. Edward C. “Terry” Watters, a Maryland physician fed up with the low standards and lack of sufficient care some of his patients were receiving in nursing homes. Watters and partner Dennis Steele petitioned for government reports about nursing homes and learned how to translate the federal Online Survey Certification and Reporting (OSCAR).

According to the site, “As they assembled the facts and ran statistical analyses, a bleak picture emerged of understaffing, physical abuse, untreated bedsores, and coldhearted decision-making by home operators and state officials charged with monitoring facilities.”

Since 1999, information on MemberoftheFamily.net has been available to the public at no cost. The organization is affiliated with no other group and all efforts have been self-funded.

SOURCE: Nursing Home Abuse › web site gives free nursing home info

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There is truly a special place … well you know where … for people who would do something like this. According to the report, which was carried by local CBS affiliate WCCO, the nursing assistants allegedly spit in residents’ mouths, poked their breasts and touched their genitals, and teased them.

Nursing home abuse has to be one of the most incomprehensible acts I encounter in my work with personal injury cases. I just don’t understand how people who are supposed to offer care and comfort, security and peace, could be so cruel. Particularly in the case of Alzheimer’s or dementia patients, who so often are bewildered and afraid, adrift in unclear memories and unsure of what is happening around them to begin with. To abuse these defenseless people – it’s just inexcusable.

Unfortunately, there is still no system for compiling official national statistics about nursing home abuse and neglect. According to the National Center on Elder Abuse, as a result no one knows precisely how many older Americans are being abused, neglected or exploited.

The major types of elder abuse are physical abuse, which includes inappropriate use of drugs and physical restraints; sexual abuse; emotional or psychological abuse, which, in addition to verbal attacks or intimidation includes enforced social isolation and treating an older person like an infant; neglect; abandonment; and financial or material exploitation.

It is most often left up to the individual – family members of loved ones – to monitor the care provided by their chosen nursing home facility. Too often, distance prevents regular visits, and families are left to worry, and hope for the best.

SOURCE: Nursing Home Abuse › a special place …

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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.

Adding to the problem, there are no federal standards that govern residential care facilities, which are known by more than 30 different names across the country, perhaps most commonly as assisted living facilities.

In her testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance in June 2002, Catherine Hawes, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management School or Rural Public Health at Texas A&M University system Health Science Center, pointed out that there has never been a systematic study of the prevalence of abuse in nursing homes. She said much of what we know is based on individual stories or focus group interviews with residents and families.

But what we do know is frightening.

• According to the best available estimates, between 1 and 2 million Americans age 65 or older have been injured, exploited or otherwise mistreated by someone on whom they depended for care or protection.
  Only 1 in 14 incidents of elder abuse in domestic settings come to the attention of authorities.
  For every one case of elder abuse, neglect, exploitation, or self-neglect reported to authorities, about five more go unreported.

The major types of elder abuse are physical abuse, which includes inappropriate use of drugs and physical restraints; sexual abuse; emotional or psychological abuse, which, in addition to verbal attacks or intimidation includes enforced social isolation and treating an older person like an infant; neglect; abandonment; and financial or material exploitation.

In 2003, state Long Term Care Ombudsman programs nationally investigated 20,673 complaints of abuse, gross neglect, and exploitation on behalf of nursing home and board and care residents. Physical abuse was the most common type reported.

Another study released in 2001 reported that based on information collected between January 1999 and January 2000 by a nursing home complaint database, 10 percent of nursing homes in the U.S. were cited for abuse violations that caused actual harm to residents or placed them in immediate jeopardy of death or serious injury.

If you or a loved one suffered a serious injury due to nursing home abuse or neglect, you have specific legal rights. For a free legal consultation, please contact us today

SOURCE: Nursing Home Abuse › 2 million elderly victims

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