An assisted living facility was recently fined $4,000 for failing to treat a patient’s pressure ulcer (bed sore, pressure sore, decubitus ulcer) for one week, said the state’s department of health, which investigated a complaint at the facility concerning the patient’s care.  During the week in which…

Felicia Eagle, a 20-year-old nursing home patient, was found dead recently after her screams for help were ignored by staff at the Golden Living Center for more than six hours.  According to records from the state’s department of health, she yelled for help…

A 79-year-old nursing home patient, who was declared by the facility at which he was a patient to be “missing,” was found dead two weeks later in the facility’s own utility closet.  The man, who was a patient at the Thunderbolt Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, apparently left his wheelchair and stumbled…

A recent study confirms that nursing homes do not properly treat pain in dementia patients.  The study, conducted by the University of North Carolina and published in the April 2008 Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, found that cognitively impaired nursing home…

We recently settled a lawsuit involving a 75-year-old nursing home patient who was hospitalized after staff at the nursing home observed that he had diminished bowel sounds, a swollen abdomen, and abdominal discomfort.  Once at the hospital, he was diagnosed with a ruptured bowel, peritonitis (infection of the…

We settled earlier today a case involving a 73-year old patient of a Roanoke area nursing home who was involved in an unwitnessed fall after she left her bed and attempted to walk to her wheelchair.  The fall resulted in an open comminuted trimalleolar fracture of…