Authorities have charged a former nursing home employee with setting a fire that led to a resident’s death. According to police, an investigation determined that the Nov. 25 fire in a linens storage room could only have been set intentionally.

A lawmaker recommended this week that the city should end its contract with a nursing home operator if the company refuses to reimburse the city for a $1.8 million fine that taxpayers were forced to pay. The company, a city contractor that runs publicly funded nursing homes in city buildings, settled a wage dispute with the Labor Department by using city money without proper authorization from the municipal government. The company drew the funds from a now closed account on which it was a co-sig…

An elderly woman recently transferred to a different nursing home after claiming she was sexually assaulted at her previous rehab center.  The county prosecutor said he is unsure where the case will go since the woman has dementia. He did assure the community that, despite her illness, the 84-year-old’s allegations will not be taken lightly. Police are awaiting the results of  an examination which took place at a hospital after the woman said she had been sexually assaulted.

Franklin County Commissioners recently marked World Elder Abuse Awareness Day by announcing the formation of a local Older Adult Protective Services Task Force. Representatives of the protective services team of the Franklin County Area Agency on Aging presented statistics showing a 77 percent rise in occurrences of elder abuse cases over the past five years. During this five-year period, financial exploitation case numbers quadrupled and abuse reports were six times more common.  In 2011, …

According to a study released by the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, one in five short-stay nursing home patients sustains a fall after their admission. Researchers from the University of Southern California and Brown University determined that, in 2006 among more than 230,000 patients in nearly 10,000 nursing homes across the country, 21% of newly admitted nursing home residents sustained at least one fall during their first 30 days in the facility. To identify the many factors cont…

A man with a history of mental issues who broke into a nursing home three years ago and beat an elderly woman to the brink of death was sentenced Monday to 60-years in prison. Charges against the man were elevated to murder after the 78-year-old died six months after the attack. Employees at the nursing home heard an alarm go off on the evening of Oct.