Nursing Homes Abuse Blog
A Prime Example Of How Not To Treat An Injured Nursing Home Patient.... Ignoring Them
I've got a confession to make. Sometimes when I'm in my office I make personal calls. Sometimes I even take time away from my day to forward email chains of perverted jokes to friends.&nbs...
Keep reading »Elopement (also referred to wandering) refers to a situation in a nursing home, assisted living facility or other institutionalized living arrangement when a cognitively impaired person leaves the safety of the facility without the knowledge of the staff.
Particularly in situations involving patients suffering from Alzheimer’s or dementia, the patient may be physically stronger than the facility acknowledges, thereby posing a significant danger to the individual.
A patient’s propensity to wander or elope should be identified at the time the patient is admitted to the facility and re-addressed by the facility as required. Preventive measures should be implemented by the facility to remove the opportunity for the patient to leave the safety of the facility.
Elopement prevention can be achieved by implementing the following measures:
- Provide an adequate number of staff to supervise residents.
- Screen patients at the time of admission to assure the facility is capable of caring for them.
- Train staff on how to identify patients who may elope — and how to re-direct them.
- Use window and door alarms.
- Have contingency plans in place to locate missing patients.
Nursing Home Liability When Patients Elope From Facility
For patients unequipped to face a potentially dangerous world, eloping from the safety of a nursing home or assisted living facility — for even a brief time — can be disastrous. Knowing these dangers, facilities are responsible for keeping tabs on patients’ whereabouts and to make use of widely accepted safety measures.
Related materials from Rosenfeld Injury Lawyers:
Many assisted living facilities and other nursing home alternative facilities have done very well financially– playing into the stigma associated with nursing homes that many people hold. While nursing homes may receive a fair amount of bad press, they provide essential medical services for millions of patients.
The level of care offered at assisted living facilities simply is not intended to take the place of the skilled nursing care offered in nursing homes….
Why in the world would I suggest the the people who are responsible for the care of our most vulnerable take a lesson from those responsible for most violent? The answer has to do with how nursing homes keep track of their residents.
Call it wandering, eloping or just escaping, there have been several recent reports of nursing home residents who have wandered from their facilities to their death without the facilities knowledge. When nursing home residents leave their safe and familiar facilities that are at the mercy of a world unaware of each residents needs. Two recent cases highlight the need for nursing homes to take notes from the jails in the way they monitor residents, staff their facilities and implement basic safeguards to minimize the risks of missing residents….
For three years, the family of 85-year-old Aurora Navas ( a dementia patient) unsuccessfully sought information about her drowning death at an assisted living facility in Florida. Even after pleading with regulatory agencies for an investigation into why their mother drowned, their pleas for the details surrounding their mother’s death fell on deaf ears.
Then, in the wake widely publicized investigative report from The Miami Herald concerning the lack of investigations into injuries and deaths at assisted living facilities throughout the state, an investigation into the suspicious death was initiated….