A growing epidemic in nursing home care involves dementia and Alzheimer's patients requiring greater care than the homes can afford to offer. Families are becoming disheartened at the difficulty in finding nursing homes willing to care for their loved ones. Increasingly,  nursing homes are turning away patients suffering from dementia and Alzheimer's diagnoses stating they are unable to offer the care necessary to accommodate the patients. The main reason nursing homes state is…

A nurse has been charged with one count of acquiring a controlled substance by misrepresentation, fraud, deception or subterfuge; and one count of false statements relating to health care matters. Her sentencing has not yet been scheduled. She admitted to diverting pain pills at two different facilities. The pill diversion occurred at one facility a few years back.

A nursing home case in one state will move forward with the option of a jury trial. Despite a signed arbitration agreement, the court against enforcing arbitration. The patient had dementia at the time and a family member signed for him.

The attorney general in one state has filed a Complaint against three nurses for diverting drugs in their facilities of care. One nurse switched jobs five times while being investigated for diverting drugs. Another nurse was fired from a nursing home after she refused to answer questions about missing narcotics.

One state is leading the way with the most penalties against its nursing home care. The nursing homes are being penalized at the highest level with payment suspensions. Twenty one percent of the facilities totaling 260 times received the sanction. However, the concern is that the number is even higher based on the National Research Council's report of the number of incidents of abuse and neglect that go unreported.

The family of a nursing home patient has filed a civil lawsuit after learning of their grandmother's neglect on social media. A visitor posted a photo of the patient on social media and it was shared over 1,000 times before the family members saw it. The caption stated the patient had been left in vomit for hours and when asked if it could be cleaned up, the facility stated, when “they could get to it”. “Families are trusting healthcare providers to take care of their mos…