A nursing assistant was found guilty of abuse for placing a trash bag over an 89-year-old woman’s head sitting in a wheelchair and suffering from dementia. Police had reported the nursing home incident to the Medicaid Fraud Office due to abuse concerns. Charges against the nursing assistant and an arrest ensued.

A federal review of nursing homes is pending for negligence in the management of their residents’ trust funds. Due to a news investigation, reports have been made of resident caregivers embezzling money in amounts exceeding $100,000. With more than 1,500 nursing homes cited for trust fund mismanagement, the investigation has brought a deep level of concern.

A nursing home is in jeopardy of losing Medicaid funding. The center provides homes to mentally ill adults, a number of them with felony records. State and federal inspections led to documentation of violence and drug abuse, including knife fights and crack cocaine, resulting in fines totaling $400,000 since last December.

A 76-year-old hospital patient with dementia fell from the window and died recently. He was a known wanderer and had gone missing twice within the last year. A police spokeswoman said officers received a 911 call about a man who had fallen from a second-story window at the hospital.

A 92-year-old man wandered away from the assisted living facility where he was living in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, and was later found safe in Arlington, Virginia. The Sheriff’s Department spokesperson explained, “Mr Coleman was picked up by a citizen in Spotsylvania county who gave him a ride to the area of Glebe Road and Jefferson Davis Highway (Rt. 1) in Arlington.” The man has some mild, age related medical issues and may have wandered from the center on foot, the police said.

The largest nursing home chain in Florida has been fined more than $1 million in state and federal penalties for failure to comply with the state’s minimum staffing standards. In 16% of its facilities those standards were not met. In addition, 36% of the company’s nursing homes are on Florida’s watch list “for not meeting state standards, or for not making corrections quickly enough.” The state staffing requirement is 2.5 Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) hours per resident per day standard, whi…