The Dickson Firm represents nursing home residents and their families in cases against the owners and the operators of nursing homes throughout the State of Ohio.
Falls pose one of the most significant threats to any elderly person. When an elderly person suffers a fall, they often suffer an orthopedic fracture. Tragically, less than 50% of elderly people who suffer an orthopedic fracture will be alive One (1) year later. Orthopedic fractures have a very high mortality rate in older people. Often orthopedic fractures require surgical intervention. Surgery in and of itself is a significant risk to an older person. Furthermore, after the fracture and the surgery, the person is far less mobile than they were before the fracture. This creates a significant number of risks. The elderly person may develop pneumonia as a result of immobility, which, in and of itself, can be fatal. In addition, the elderly person can develop skin breakdown because they are less mobile. We discuss bed sores in another section of this website. However, falls pose one of the most significant threats to elderly people, specifically including elderly nursing home residents.
If someone you love has suffered a fall in a nursing home, please call us at The Dickson Firm at 1 800 OHIO LAW, as we would be happy to talk with you and help you in any way that we can.
There is a body of law in the State of Ohio known as the Nursing Home Residents Bill of Rights. This body of law guarantees a number of rights to nursing home residents. It provides that nursing homes are legally required to provide their residents with a safe environment. Nursing homes are obligated to do a comprehensive assessment of each and every one of their residents. Based on that comprehensive assessment, they are obligated to come up with a comprehensive care plan with measurable objectives and time tables. This assessment must determine the resident's risk for falling. The care plan must address the resident's risk for falling.
If someone you love is being admitted to a nursing home, or someone you love is already in a nursing home, and they are at risk for falls, ask the Director of Nursing to show you the care plan and show you what interventions are care planned for your loved one to provide them with a safe environment. Then, ask the Director of Nursing at the nursing home to show you documentation that those interventions are being implemented.
In addition to the Nursing Home Residents Bill of Rights discussed above, there is a body of federal law known as the Code of Federal Regulations. That body of law contains a number of specific requirements for the care of nursing home residents in a nursing home. One of those requirements is that nursing homes are legally obligated to provide their residents with adequate supervision to prevent accidents.
What is adequate supervision? For different nursing home residents, it means different things. However, if your loved one is at risk for falls, the nursing home has to come up with a plan to adequately supervise your loved one 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. If your loved one has dementia or is otherwise confused and does not know that they cannot get up safely on their own, the nursing home must come up with a system to adequately supervise your loved one. There are lots of interventions that can be put in place. One of the most common are fall alarms. There are some fall alarms that consist of a pressure pad that goes in your loved one's seat in a wheelchair or a chair or under your loved one in their bed. When your loved one begins to get up and takes pressure off the pad, the pad sounds an alarm.
It is incumbent upon the nursing home staff to come to your loved one immediately to make sure they are okay. If the nursing home is understaffed, it is virtually impossible for the staff to accurately respond to the fall alarm.
First and foremost, you should ask the staff at the nursing home if they are using a fall alarm.
Secondly, if they are using a fall alarm, see if you can set it off and see how long it takes the staff to respond to it. In the alternative, push your loved one's call button and see how long it takes the staff to respond to your loved one. If there are significant delays in responding to either your loved one's fall alarm or their call button, you need to talk to the director of nursing and find out what the problem is. If they do not have an accurate explanation for you, then you should seriously think about moving your loved one to a different nursing home.
In addition to fall alarms, there are motion detectors that can be set up in your loved one's room. There are cameras that can be set up so that the nursing home staff can keep an eye on your loved one remotely. There are a number of interventions that can be put into place to keep your loved one safe. The key is to make sure these interventions are put into place.
If your loved one is being admitted to a nursing home or is already in a nursing home, ask the director of nursing to show their care plan and show you documentation that the interventions are being put in place. If the nursing home cannot explain to you how they are keeping your loved one safe, then you should move your loved one to a different nursing home.
Many nursing homes tell the families of their residents that they do not use alarms because alarms are restraints. Here at The Dickson Firm, we think that is an excuse. We think that they say that to justify not using alarms. We also think they typically do not use alarms because when they are using alarms, their substandard care is often documented. In other words, if the resident is supposed to have an alarm and they suffer a fall and the alarm is not in place, then the nursing home is clearly at fault. Likewise, if the resident suffers a fall and they are using an alarm, but nobody responded to the alarm, that is also documentation of their substandard care. If there is no alarm in use, it is more difficult to document the substandard care.
Nursing homes are not permitted to restrain their residents. The reason for this is logical. Restraints typically are not effective. For example, if a resident often falls out of bed and the nursing home puts up their bed rails, typically, the resident will climb over the bed rails, resulting in them simply falling from a higher height. Instead, what the nursing home should do is put their bed in the lowest position or put their mattress on the ground and put a mat by their bed. Then if they roll out of bed, they do not fall very far, and they land on a soft mat, and they do not suffer injury.
Nursing homes falsely claim that alarms are restraints. The argument is that the sound of the alarm startles the resident and makes them afraid to get up, and therefore, the alarm itself keeps them restrained. This is a false argument. If the nursing home tells you that, ask them to show you. Ask them to show you the effect of an alarm on your loved one. They make alarms where instead of an alarm sounding, it can be your voice. Your voice can be recorded. So if Mom starts to get up and the alarm goes off, instead of hearing an alarm, she hears your voice saying, "Mom, sit down and wait for someone to come help you." There are fall alarms that light a light up over the resident's door. There are fall alarms that light a light up at the nurse's station. There are fall alarms that make a pager go off that the nurses wear. There are lots of ways to use an alarm that does not startle the resident and does not restrain them in any way. Alarms are not restraints.
If your loved one cannot walk safely on their own, then the nursing home must attend to them when they are walking. They must attend to them in such a way that they are close enough to prevent a fall. Often they use what is called a “gait belt”. This goes around your loved one, and the staff member can keep their hand on it, so if your loved one starts to fall, they can lower them gently to the ground without them suffering injury.
One of the most common scenarios we see is a nursing home resident who cannot walk safely on their own being left on the toilet unattended or sometimes left in the shower unattended. If a nursing home resident cannot walk safely on their own, they should not be left unattended. The staff person needs to stay with them during toileting. They need to stay with them during showering. They need to stay close to them, as indicated above, when they are walking. Often, when the nursing home is understaffed, residents are left unattended because there simply are not enough staff members to attend to all of the residents.
When you go to visit your loved one, see if you see staff in the hallways, in the residents’ room. If you visit your loved one during mealtime, are there are an adequate number of staff in the dining room keeping an eye on the residents. Visit your loved one late at night. Visit your loved one early in the morning. See how many staff you see as you are walking through the nursing home. If you do not see any staff members, you should be concerned about the staffing of the nursing home. If you push your loved one's call button and nobody comes for an extended period of time, you should be concerned about the staffing at the nursing home.
The nursing home should be able to assess your loved one as being at risk for falls whether they have had a fall or not. Residents who do not walk steadily are at risk for falls. Residents who are confused and demented are often at risk for falls. Residents who cannot get up and go to the bathroom on their own safely are at risk for falls. However, if your loved one has had a fall, whether at home, or at the nursing home, or in the hospital, that is a clear indication that they are at risk for falls.
Often residents are admitted into nursing homes so they can receive physical therapy and they can get stronger so that they are not at risk for falls. Tragically, nursing homes often ignore the fact that the resident is at risk for falls and fail to implement the necessary precautions to keep them safe.
Often a nursing home resident's needs change. Often their condition changes. Sometimes, the condition of a resident who was once able to walk safely on their own deteriorates. Perhaps they become more confused. Perhaps they lose weight. Perhaps they become less steady on their feet. It is incumbent upon nursing homes to assess their residents on a regular basis to see if their condition is changing. If their condition is changing, then their care plan must be updated.
If your loved one has suffered a fall, you need to ask the Director of Nursing to show you how they have updated the care plan. What are the new interventions? What are the new ways they are going to keep your loved one safe? Obviously what they are doing currently is not working since your loved one had a fall. So what are they going to do differently to keep your loved one safe?
The nursing home is legally obligated to notify a resident's family any time they have a significant change in condition, including a fall, including an injury, including any significant change in their condition. They are likewise obligated to notify their doctor. They are also obligated to update their care plan. They are also obligated to document these notifications.
If you find out that your loved one has had a fall and nobody from the nursing home contacted you, you need to talk with the Director of Nursing and find out why you were not contacted after that fall. Tragically, lack of notification can be caused by understaffing. If the nursing home does not have enough staff, often they start skipping things like contacting the family and/or the doctor of the resident who fell. Sometimes, it is evidence of a cover up. The nursing home does not want to tell the family or the doctor that the resident fell for fear that the family will move the resident.
Here at The Dickson Firm, we have handled many cases where we have obtained the resident's records and discovered that the resident suffered far more falls than the family knew of. We are currently handling a case where a resident suffered 25 falls. The care plan was updated exactly twice. There were numerous falls that resulted in no new interventions. If a resident has a fall and the care plan is not updated, it is almost inevitable that the resident will fall again. If you find out that your loved one has had a fall and you were not contacted, you should talk to the Director of Nursing immediately. If he or she does not have an adequate explanation for you, you should move your loved one immediately.
If your loved one has any kind of a head injury, you need to find out what happened. If your loved one has any other bruises on their body, you need to find out what happened. This is especially important if your loved one is not able to articulate to you what happened. You must be particularly careful with a resident who is not able to communicate.
We represent a lot of families where their loved one is not able to communicate, whether because of dementia or some other issue. You must be particularly vigilant with the care of these residents since they cannot tell you what is happening. We represented a family of a woman who was being physically abused by the nursing home. Her son hid a camera in her room, and when we reviewed the footage, we discovered that the staff was assaulting her. Two members of the staff went to prison. The nursing home received a large fine from the Ohio Department of Health. And we pursued the nursing home for significant damages for the multiple assaults on this non-verbal resident.
If your loved one is not able to tell you what is going on, then you must be particularly vigilant about their care. Visit often. Visit at all different times of the day. Approach their room slowly and listen to what is happening. Pay attention to the staff. Pay attention to how your loved one responds or reacts to different staff members. In the case of the woman who was being assaulted, we reviewed the video footage, and there were numerous employees who would enter her room, and she was clearly afraid of them because they were abusing her. This was a heart-breaking case, and we were thrilled to be able to hold the nursing home accountable for their atrocious actions.
If your loved one has suffered a fall in a nursing home and is alive, you have one (1) year from the date that your loved one knew or should have known that they were the victim of substandard care, or 1 year from the last date they treated with the potential Defendant for the condition complained of, whichever date is later. So, if your loved one is still in the nursing home receiving care for the injuries they suffered when they fell, then the statute of limitations would not begin to run until they left the nursing home or until they stopped receiving care for the injuries that they suffered when they fell.
We strongly recommend that if your loved one suffers a fall at a nursing home and suffers injury, that you move them to a better nursing home. In many, many cases that we have handled, the resident does not stop falling until they suffer a serious injury and wind up hospitalized or until they are moved to a better nursing home. We have not seen a lot of cases where the nursing home updates the care plan, implements better interventions, and keeps the resident safe from future falls.
If your loved one suffers dementia or is otherwise mentally unsound, then the statute of limitations never runs during their life. The statute of limitations would begin to run on the date of their death, and after that, you would have 1 year to bring a lawsuit. If a lawsuit is not brought within the applicable statute of limitations, your claims and/or your loved one's claims will be forever time barred. As a result, we strongly recommend, if your loved one has suffered a fall in a nursing home, and you are considering bringing a claim against that nursing home, that you contact us as soon as possible.
If your loved one has passed away and you have a claim for wrongful death, you still must bring the survivorship claims within the 1 year time period described above. You need to open an estate for your loved one and appoint a personal representative. The personal representative can then bring the claim. The personal representative can bring a claim on behalf of the estate for your loved one's pain and suffering, their loss of enjoyment of life, and the medical bills they incurred for the injuries that they suffered when they fell. All of these claims survive your loved one's death and become survivorship damages, which belong to the estate. The estate would recover these damages, and that money would then be distributed to your loved one's next of kin pursuant to their will, or if they did not have a will, pursuant to the laws of descent and distribution.
In addition, if your loved one died as the result of the injuries that they suffered when they fell, the next of kin would be able to recover for their mental anguish and their loss of society. Mental anguish refers to the emotional suffering that people endure when one of their next of kin dies. Loss of society means that you had a valuable relationship with your loved one and that relationship has been taken away as the result of your loved one's death.
The time period for filing the wrongful death claim is two (2) years from the date of the person's death. However, we have seen some troubling cases lately where defense attorneys have tried to argue that you only have one (1) year to bring the claim for wrongful death. That is not what the statute says. But that argument is out there. As a result, we would strongly recommend that if you have a claim, that you contact us as soon as possible so that we can discuss your case and help you accurately determine exactly how long you have to bring a lawsuit. If you wait too long, your claims will be forever time barred.
Your loved one has a claim for pain and suffering and their loss of enjoyment of life, as well as for the medical bills they incurred for the injuries they suffered when they fell.
Pain and suffering is actually the physical sensation of pain. So if your loved one suffers a fall and a fracture and suffers physical pain, they are entitled to compensation for that physical pain.
Loss of enjoyment of life means that their activities are curtailed. So, for example, if your loved one suffers a fall and a fracture and needs surgery and now is immobile, they would have a claim for their loss of enjoyment of life. They would have a claim for all the things they cannot do because of that fracture. We have represented residents who suffered permanent injury as a result of a fall. They never recovered. They never regained their mobility. As a result, they have a significant claim for their permanent loss of mobility and their permanent loss of enjoyment of life.
They also have a claim for the medical bills incurred for the treatment they received for the injuries they suffered when they fell.
In addition, as indicated above, we are able to recover for the mental anguish, which is the emotional suffering of the nursing home resident's next of kin. We are also able to recover for loss of society, being the loss of the relationship with the nursing home resident as a result of their death.
Often the nursing home where your loved one is a resident will not help you move them. They do not want to lose the revenue. As a result, your best option is to find a new nursing home and then work with the nursing home to move your loved one. The new nursing home is motivated to help you with the transfer because they are receiving your loved one. They are gaining the revenue for your loved one.
So, step 1 is to find a better nursing home. If you go to www.Medicare.gov/care-compare, there is a nursing home compare feature which enables you to create a list of every nursing home near you. You can search nursing homes that are geographically close to you. You can sort those nursing homes by their five-star rating. On the www.Medicare.gov website, nursing homes are rated. Nursing homes receive an overall five-star rating. They also receive a five star rating for staffing. You can also see if the nursing home has received any penalties.
Once you identify a number of decent nursing homes close to you, we recommend that you go and visit those nursing homes and then make a thoughtful choice about where to move your loved one. Ask the Director of Nursing for the new nursing home what the plan will be to keep your loved one safe. Ask them all the questions indicated above so that you are assured that they have a plan for keeping your loved one safe. Thereafter, visit them often and make sure that plan is being implemented.
The lawyers of The Dickson Firm have handled numerous cases involving nursing home residents who have gotten up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and suffered a fall that has led to a fracture which has been fatal for that nursing home resident. Likewise, The Dickson Firm has handled numerous cases where nursing home residents were left unattended in one or more areas of the nursing home, and fallen in the lobby, or the TV room, or the dining room and suffered serious, and sometimes fatal injury.
If someone you loved has been neglected or abused in a nursing home, please call us at The Dickson Firm at 1 800 OHIO LAW, as we would be happy to talk with you and help you in any way that we can.
The Dickson Firm represents victims and their families across Ohio, including Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Toledo, Youngstown, Akron, Sandusky and others.
