Making the decision that a nursing home is the best place for your loved one is never easy. When you choose a facility to care for, support, protect, and create a warm home environment for an older adult you care about, you trust that things will go well even when you can’t be there. But no matter how ideal a nursing home may be, you still need to be involved in your family member or friend’s life to make sure they receive the care and attention they need—and that’s right for them as an individual. Concerned relatives of an older adult who moved into a long-term care facility may be asking: How can I check on my loved one in a nursing home?

Residents in nursing homes often receive medication because they have health issues. It’s important that residents only receive the medication they’re prescribed and need for their existing physical and mental illnesses.

However, residents in long-term care facilities sometimes are given medications they don’t need to keep them restrained, more manageable, or in a stupor. This is sometimes done to keep residents quieter, more docile, or need less individual care. The problem is this violates their rights. Elderly residents deserve to live their lives free from restraints of any kind and free from unnecessary medications. When they’re given medications they don’t need, it can cause their physical and mental health to rapidly decline.

Let’s take a look at the prevalent issue of overmedication in nursing homes and how a lawyer can potentially help your loved one get justice if they are being overmedicated.

Choosing a nursing home for your elderly loved one can be a hard process and take a lot of time and consideration. No matter how much research and investigating you do on different facilities to determine if they’re right for your family member, they still might experience mistreatment and abuse at the care home that you choose.

When you and your loved one decide that a nursing home is the best course of action for continuing their care into their later years, you likely will do plenty of research to make sure that it’s the right facility for their needs. Unfortunately, no matter how much investigating and preparing you do, the long-term care facility you choose can still mistreat your elderly family member.

Nursing homes can be exceptional places for your elderly loved ones to receive around the clock care or get the assistance to live their lives as best as possible in their old age. No matter how much research you did about the facility and no matter how much you visit your loved one, they could still have complaints about their nursing home.

Given the congregate nature of nursing homes and the fact that many residents have underlying medical conditions that result in compromised immune systems, long-term care facility populations are at a high risk of being affected by viruses like COVID-19. This is why strong infection prevention and control are critical to protect residents and healthcare workers.

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to spread across the country, nursing homes are among the hardest hit. Even the most prepared facilities have struggled to mitigate the spread once the virus is inside. According to the New York Times, for-profit nursing homes seem to be struggling the most when it comes to caring for residents with COVID-19.

When we place the care of our elderly loved ones into the hands of a nursing home, we have to trust that the facility will care for them in ways we cannot. Unfortunately, many nursing home residents do not receive the care they need or are owed. As a result, many seniors end up with preventable injuries, or worse.

If you believe your loved one is being neglected, you can take legal action on their behalf. At McMath Wood P.A., our lawyers are prepared to guide you in the direction towards justice.

You may be uncertain as to whether or not your loved one is being cared for properly. Signs of neglect do not always manifest themselves the way signs of abuse do. This is why it’s important to understand what neglect it, how to recognize it, and what you can do if you’re loved one isn’t being cared for properly.

Everyone has heard of the term “bedsore”.  Medical care experts refer to bedsores and decubitus ulcers as pressure ulcers.  Pressure ulcer prevention and treatment continue to be huge issues in hospitals and nursing homes.  Many people are aware of the danger of pressure ulcer development in nursing homes but are not as aware that this is a major concern for patients in hospitals, particularly if they are immobile. McMath Woods has handled numerous pressure ulcer/bedsore cases, including one against an Arkansas hospital resulting in a jury verdict of 1.5 million dollars.

Hospital pressure ulcer cases are unique as staffing and reporting requirements can differ from nursing home cases.  As our population is aging and life expectancy is increasing, longer acute care hospital stays seem to be occurring.  These longer acute care hospital stays increase the risk of pressure ulcers.  Pressure ulcers have been defined by the National Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel (NPUAP) in conjunction with the European Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel (EPUAP) as localized injury to the skin and/or underlying tissue usually over a bony prominence, as a result of pressure, or pressure in combination with shear.