A large pharmaceutical company has agreed to pay federal and state governments $1.6 billion in fines for illegally promoting unapproved uses of its drug Depakote, including it’s use to sedate elderly patients in nursing homes, officials announced Monday. Depakote, which the FDA has approved to treat three conditions: epileptic seizures, migraines, and the manic episodes experienced by people with bipolar disorder was being promoted for “off-market” uses by the company. Off-market promotions are …

Officials in one state have arrested nineteen people as part of operation “Stop the Drop.” According to the Sheriff’s Office, the suspects allegedly preyed on the elderly and defrauded taxpayers and the IRS of $500,000. Several of the suspects worked in nursing homes where they would steal patients’ information from their medical files and sell it to other people who would use it to file fraudulent tax returns. The Sheriff says the crimes resulted in nearly 400 identity thefts.

The family of an elderly woman killed trying to cross a busy road is suing the assisted living facility where the woman was living at the time. The 74-year-old resident left the facility through a side door around 1:15 a.m. back in May of 2010.

The woman charged with lighting an occupied nursing home bed on fire late last year pleaded guilty Wednesday to a reduced charge of second-degree elderly abuse. She was sentenced to eight years in prison. According to police, the bed of a 73-year-old resident, a roommate of the suspect’s mother, had been set on fire with the resident asleep in the bed.

A nursing home employee was arrested today after police said she stole morphine pills and left patients alone while she attempted to sell them door-to-door. The 42-year-old caretaker, was arraigned on charges of drug possession, possession with intent to deliver, theft by unlawful taking and reckless endangerment. According to court documents, a resident of the neighborhood called police on Tuesday to report a woman from the nursing home had come to her door and tried to sell her morphine.

Officials in one state are investigating the March death of 82-year-old developmentally disabled woman who choked on marshmallows at the nursing home where she lived. A nurse had improperly advised a visitor that it was okay to give the woman two marshmallows as she sat in her wheelchair in front of a nursing station. The resident became unresponsive and lapsed into cardiac arrest, according to an inspection report by the Department of Public Health.