Malnutrition and Dehydration

By nursing home abuse attorney, Blake Dickson

Tragically, at The Dickson Firm, we receive calls from families whose loved one has died as a result of neglect.  Often these residents have died of dehydration and/or malnutrition.

Many nursing home residents need assistance with eating.  Some residents have suffered a recent injury.  Many of the residents who we represent have suffered a fall at home leading to a fracture, often a hip fracture.  They have been taken to the hospital, where they have required surgery. 

And then, after the surgery, they need assistance.  They are transferred to a nursing home to recuperate.  Other nursing home residents, because of dementia or other conditions causing confusion, need assistance with eating and drinking.  Some residents just need to be reminded to eat and drink.  Other residents actually need help with eating and drinking.

Many, many of the nursing homes that we sue, here in Ohio, are understaffed.  The owners and operators of the nursing home intentionally understaff the nursing home.  Once a nursing home has filled all of the beds in the nursing home, they cannot make any additional money.  The only way to increase profits is to reduce their costs.  The largest line item in any nursing home budget is staffing.  Many of the nursing homes replace RNs with LPNs.  They replace LPNs with aids.  And overall, they understaff the nursing home to reduce their costs and increase their profits.  This puts the residents at risk.

Here at The Dickson Firm, we carefully investigate cases involving dehydration and malnutrition.

If someone you love has been neglected or abused in a nursing home, please call us at 1 800 OHIO LAW. We would be happy to talk with you and help you in any way that we can.

Proper hydration and proper nutrition helps people avoid skin breakdown.  It also helps people heal skin breakdown.  Residents who suffer from dehydration and or malnutrition are at greater risk of skin breakdown.  It is also very hard for a resident who is not properly nourished and not properly hydrated to heal skin breakdown.

Nursing home residents maintain records.  Here at The Dickson Firm, we are very experienced in analyzing nursing home records.  Most nursing homes maintain documentation of a resident's meals.  There are codes for how much help the resident got.  We often see cases where the resident requires someone to sit and help them eat.  However, the records indicate that the staff brought the food and simply left it for the resident.  If the resident cannot eat on their own, then they are unable to get the nutrition and hydration that they need unless the staff helps them eat.

We have many families who call and report finding their resident in their room with a tray of food untouched on a table next to their bed.

We represented one family in a very tragic case in Steubenville, Ohio, where the resident was eating in the dining room.  He was apparently unattended.  No one was helping him eat.  He attempted to take some plastic wrap off of one of the containers of food, and he wound up ingesting the plastic wrap and choking to death.  We found out later that one of the aids working in the dining room was a recovering drug addict, who was not paying adequate attention to the residents and did not see this individual ingest this plastic wrap.

Many nursing home residents have a condition called dysphagia, which is a problem with swallowing.  They must be monitored on a regular basis.  And the nursing home must make sure that they only receive certain types of foods.  If they do not receive the proper types of foods, they are unable to consume them, and they suffer malnutrition.

Nursing homes should monitor the weights of their residents.  Anytime there is a significant unintended change in a resident's weight, that should be reported, and their care plan should be updated.  Nursing homes can give their residents supplements like Ensure, which provide them with supplementary nutrition and help them avoid malnutrition.

Nursing homes should also carefully monitor the protein intake of their residents.  This also helps with avoiding skin breakdown and healing skin breakdown.  It also helps with the residents strength.  If residents do not take in enough protein, they are unable to maintain muscle, and they can begin to lose mobility.

Years ago, there was a tragic case in Columbus involving a resident who suffered from dementia and would not remember to drink.  He was in a facility for a very short time.  The staff failed to remind him to drink on a regular basis.  They failed to monitor his fluid intake.  They failed to monitor his condition.  If a resident is being monitored, the nursing home can determine if they are dehydrated.  They can note dehydration by the condition of the resident's skin.  As the resident becomes dehydrated, sometimes their nail beds appear blue.  Their lips can appear blue.  This resident was not properly monitored, and tragically he died of dehydration, simply because the nursing home failed to remind him to drink enough fluid.

Nursing homes are legally obligated to provide a comprehensive assessment for each and every one of their residents and to develop a care plan that addresses all of their residents' needs.  They are then legally obligated to update that care plan on a regular basis and also in response to any significant change in condition. 

If the resident has a significant change in condition, they are obligated to contact their doctor and to contact their family.  If a resident is receiving proper care in a nursing home, and being properly monitored and assessed on a regular basis, there is no excuse for them suffering dehydration or malnutrition.  Multiple staff interact with every resident every day.  Every resident is gotten up out of bed and assisted with their morning routine. 

At a minimum, a staff person brings the resident their meal.  Every time that happens, the individual should determine whether or not that resident needs help with their meal.  If they need help, then the nursing home staff should make sure they receive the help they need.

We have represented numerous families in cases involving dehydration and malnutrition, often with tragic consequences.  

If someone you love 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.

Choking Hazards in Nursing Homes

We receive calls all the time from families whose loved one has choked in a nursing home. 

There are numerous hazards in nursing homes that our clients should be aware of.  

If someone you love has been neglected or abused in a nursing home, please call us at 1-800-OHIO LAW as we would be happy to talk with you and help you in any way that we can.

DENTURES

If your loved one has dentures, the nursing home must make sure to keep their dentures clean and to put their dentures in every day so that they can use them to eat their meals.  Their dentures must fit properly.  If their dentures don't fit properly, they can cause irritation which can make their mouth sore. 

If a nursing home resident has a sore mouth, they may not eat when they are supposed to.  If they don't eat on a regular basis, they can lose weight which can lead to weakness.  Not receiving enough nutrition can lead to dizziness, which can lead to falls.  Lack of nutrition can make them more susceptible to skin breakdown.  Lack of nutrition can make it harder to heal skin breakdown if they have skin breakdown. 

If they are not eating enough, they may be tired.  They may not get out of bed as often as they should.  They may not get the activities that they should.  This can lead to a series of problems.  Nursing home residents should be kept active.  They should get up every day.  They should go to therapy.  They should move around as much as possible. 

If they remain in bed or they remain in a chair all day, they can suffer skin breakdown.  And they can have a number of other issues.  If your loved one is not wearing their dentures they may not be able to eat certain foods safely.  This can lead to them choking.

DYSPHAGIA

Some residents have swallowing problems, including a condition known as dysphagia.  If a resident has swallowing difficulties, they might need to be on a special diet.  You must make sure that your resident is on the appropriate diet for their needs. 

You also want to make sure that they are receiving that diet.  We recommend that you visit your loved one during mealtimes.  Are they receiving the appropriate diet?  Is someone assisting them if they need assistance?  

Every resident's chart should have a care plan which details their needs and how their needs are being accommodated, including their need for certain types of foods.  Their care plan should indicate if they need to have their foods prepared a certain way.

FOOD PREPARATION

Some residents need to have their foods pureed.  Some residents can only eat soft foods.  We have tragically seen cases where people have died as a result of receiving improper foods. 

Some residents can't chew properly so they can't be served meat.  They can't be served hot dogs.  They can't be served foods that they can't chew properly.  Some residents have to receive thickened liquids because of their swallowing problems.

THE NURSING HOME SHOULD MONITOR THEIR RESIDENTS’ WEIGHT

The nursing home should be monitoring your loved one.  If your loved one is experiencing unintended weight loss, you should look into why this is occurring. 

Unintended weight loss can lead to a series of problems and can even be fatal.  Unintended weight loss can be caused by a series of issues, a number if which can be very serious. 

Likewise if your loved one is gaining weight that should be questioned.  Are they eating a healthy diet?  Are they active?  Are they retaining water?

SOME RESIDENTS NEED SUPERVISION WHILE EATING   

If your resident has dementia or Alzheimer's Disease or if your loved one suffers from mental retardation, they may need supervision while eating. 

We represented the family of a woman who tragically died because she was left unattended during meals.  She suffered from mental retardation and did not pace herself when eating.  She would stuff large quantities of food into her mouth.  She literally choked to death alone in her room.  It was a completely avoidable, heart breaking tragedy.  

In addition to the hazards posed by food, some residents who suffer from dementia or Alzheimer's or other type of confusion, can ingest things that they shouldn't. 

Nursing home residents need to be monitored.  We tragically represented the family of a woman who wandered into the kitchen and consumed cleaning products and died as a result.

STRANGULATION  

In addition to the hazards posed by food and various cleaning supplies and chemicals in the nursing home, some residents suffer strangulation.  One of the reasons that a nursing home typically does not put the bed rails up on a resident's bed is because the resident can get caught in the bed rails and literally strangle. 

For this reason, somebody who is at risk for falls should be placed in a low bed or on a mattress on the floor, with a mat next to their bed, not have the rails of their bed raised.  

NURSING HOMES MIST HAVE A COMPREHENSIVE CARE PLAN FOR EACH RESIDENT

If someone you love is at risk for choking for any number of reasons, you should ask the nursing home to show you the care plan and show you how the nursing home is addressing the fact that they are at risk for choking.  You should also ask the nursing home to show you where they are documenting how they are implementing that care plan. 

Most nursing homes have a section of the chart known as the Documentation Survey Report or the Treatment Administration Record or TAR, and in that report or that TAR there should be different rows for different meals and then different columns for every single day of the month.  

So, for example, on February 3 there should be a row for breakfast and a row for lunch and a row for dinner and, in some cases, a row for a snack.  In each square for each meal for each day, there is typically a code.  This code explains the resident's needs, how many people they need to help them, and what kind of help they need. 

For example, some residents just need their meals set up.  The staff simply needs to bring them their food, set them up in a chair or in their bed with utensils, make sure all the wrappings are taken off the food, and the residents can feed themselves.  Some residents need assistance with eating.  If an aid helps a resident with their meal, they typically initial the Treatment Administration Record or the Documentation Survey Report and show that they helped the resident with the meal.

Often residents eat in the dining room.  However, some residents who eat in the dining room still need assistance.  We represented the family of a man who died because he ingested a large piece of plastic food wrap and choked to death while eating a meal in the dining room.  The aid who was supposed to be watching him wasn’t.  

Tragically, we receive dozens of phone calls every year regarding cases that involve choking.  If someone you love is in a nursing home, and they are at risk for choking, you must talk to the nursing home. 

You must make sure that your loved one is comprehensively assessed for all of their needs, including their needs with respect to eating meals.  You must make sure that their care plan addresses all of their needs.  You should also ask to see documentation that the care plan is being implemented.  

If someone you love has been neglected or abused in a nursing home, please call us at 1-800-OHIO LAW as we would be happy to talk with you and help you in any way that we can.

What Can I Do if My Loved One is a Resident of a Nursing Home and at Risk for Falls?

By nursing home abuse attorney, Blake Dickson

I spent the last few days working on a very significant fall case.  We represent the family of a woman who was a resident of a nursing home.  She was a very high risk for falls. 

Tragically, she was allowed to fall twenty five (25) times in the nursing home over a period of time.  The nursing home completely failed her.  And it made me think of all the different ways that a family can intervene and help keep their loved one safe if they are in a nursing home and they are at risk for falls.  

First and foremost, if you are admitting someone into a nursing home, we always recommend that you start with www.Medicare.gov  and make a list of all the nursing homes close to you, based on their five star rating. 

You can first look up all the nursing homes within 25 miles of you or 50 miles of you.  Then, you can put that list in order of the nursing home's five star rating with the best rated nursing homes at the top. 

You can then work your way to through the five star nursing homes that are close to you.  Having narrowed it down from there you can visit each of these nursing homes, talk with the administrator and/or the director of nursing and discuss your loved one's care.  

As you can see you can filter the nursing homes by their Overall Rating.  You can also filter by their Health Inspection Rating, their Staffing Rating or their Quality Measures.  You can also filter the nursing homes based on size.  The search above is for all nursing homes within twenty five (25) miles of Cleveland, Ohio.  You can limit your search to a five (5) mile radius.  You can expand your search to a two hundred (200) mile radius.  The web site also shows each nursing home on a map.       

It is very important to place your loved one close to friends and family.  One of the best ways to insure that your loved one is receiving proper care is for as many people to visit that person as possible. 

Friends and family should visit at all times of the day.  Some one should go in the morning when they get the resident up on some days.  Some one else should go during meal times like breakfast, lunch and dinner to make sure they are getting adequate assistance with meals. 

Some one else should visit in the mid afternoon to see if your loved one is being provided with proper care.  Is the nursing home just leaving them sitting in a chair or are they engaging them in activities?  Are they getting therapy?  Are they moving?

You can help keep your loved one from falling in a number of different ways.  First and foremost when you admit your loved one to a nursing home or when you visit a nursing home to potentially admit your loved one to the nursing home, you need to ask the administrator and/or the director of nursing what the plan is to keep your loved one safe.  Nursing homes are legally required to provide each and every one of their residents with adequate supervision.  How are they going to provide your loved one with adequate supervision?  

There are a variety of ways that they can accomplish this.  They can use alarms.  There are alarms that consist of a pressure pad that goes under their butt when they are sitting in a chair or wheelchair and goes under their body when they are laying in bed.  When the resident starts to get up they take pressure off the pad and the alarm goes off. 

The staff then must promptly attend to them to make sure they don't get all the way up and try to walk if they are not able to walk safely on their own.  The nursing home needs to be properly staffed.  You should definitely ask the director of nursing and/or the administrator if the nursing home is properly staffed. 

You should also ask other staff members who you meet if the nursing home is properly staffed.  As you walk around the nursing home, do you see staff?  Are there nurses at the nursing station?  Are there nurses and aids in the various resident's rooms?  Are there nurses walking up and down the hallway.  

If your loved one is already in a nursing home, sit in their room and push the call button.  How long does it take someone to respond?  If your loved one has a fall alarm, set it off.  Have them take pressure off it and see how quickly the staff gets there.  

If someone you love has been neglected or abused in a nursing home, please call us here 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.

Some nursing homes will tell you that alarms are restraints.  This is 100% not true.  This is an excuse made up by the nursing homes to justify not using alarms. 

It is our belief at The Dickson Firm that they do not use alarms because alarms help us prove liability in fall cases.  If they had access to fall alarms and they did not use them, that is absolutely negligent.  If they did use the alarm and it went off for an extended period of time and nobody responded to the resident promptly, that is also clear negligence and probably evidence of understaffing.  

Alarms are not restraints.  The argument is that the alarm goes off and it scares the resident and they are afraid to get up.  That is not a restraint.  Physical restraints are prohibited.  Alarms are absolutely not prohibited.  Further, there are alarms where you can record your voice telling your loved one to sit down and wait for help.  If any nursing home ever tells you that an alarm is a restraint, asked them if they have tried an alarm with your loved one.  Odds are the answer will be no.  If they do not use alarms, then you need to ask them how they are providing your loved one with adequate supervision.  How are they keeping an eye on your loved one when they are in their room?  How do they know if your loved one is getting up in the middle of the night to try and go to the bathroom?  How do they know if your loved one is walking in their room by themselves.  

In the case I was just working on, the resident literally suffered twenty five (25) falls.  All the falls were unwitnessed.  She was perpetually found having fallen in her room.  Often she was trying to go to the bathroom.  At other times she was getting up from a chair and going to bed etc.  The nursing home utterly failed to implement any of a number of available interventions that could have kept this woman safe and prevented her from falling and suffering a fatal injury.   

Nursing homes can also use motion detectors that alert them if somebody is up and around in their room.  

Nursing homes can also use cameras to keep an eye on the residents.  

You need to ask the nursing home how they are going to provide your loved one with adequate supervision to prevent actions.  

Next, if your loved one is in the nursing home when they are supposed to be receiving therapy, make sure they are getting the therapy.  Therapy helps residents to become stronger.  The stronger a resident is, the less likely it is they are going to fall.  If they are neglecting your loved one and they are just leaving them laying in bed all day they are going to get weaker and that is going to increase their risk of falling.  

If your loved one has a fall, you need to ask the nursing home what they are going to do going forward to keep your loved one safe.  This is the biggest problem in the case I am working on right now, is that the nursing home never updated the care plan after any of the falls.

Every time a resident has a fall the nursing should conduct a meeting of the Interdisciplinary Team and come up with additional interventions to keep the resident safe.  The nursing home never did that in the case I am working on.  As a result, this woman fell again and again and again.  She ultimately suffered a head injury and she died.  If your loved one has a fall, even if they do not suffer any injury from the fall, you need to ask the nursing home what they are going to do differently to prevent future falls.  

The nursing home should also be scheduling care conferences with you to discuss your loved one's care.  If your loved one has a fall, there should be a care conference after that fall during which you are consulted about your loved one's ongoing care.  

Nursing homes are legally obligated to perform a comprehensive assessment of each and every resident, to analyze all of their needs, and then to come up with a comprehensive care plan that addresses those needs.  Ask to see your loved one’s care plan.  What does it say?  What does it recommend?  What are the interventions that are put in place to keep your loved one from falling?  Are they generic interventions?  Is it a generic care plan that would apply to all residents?  Or is it specific to your loved one.  It is supposed to be specific to your loved one.  Is it?  

Another way to prevent falls is to anticipate your loved one's needs.  So for example, if your loved one is up in their room every night at 3:00 a.m. because they have to go to the bathroom, the nursing home should toilet them every night at 2:45 a.m. and anticipate their need to go to the bathroom.  If your loved one is up walking around the room because they are bored, your loved one should be engaged in activities.  The nursing home should make sure that your loved one has whatever they need within easy reach.  If they need to reach the television remote, or a book or their reading glasses, those items should all be kept in reach.  

You must talk with the nursing home after any fall that your loved one suffers even if they do not suffer any injury.  You must find out what the plan is to prevent future falls.  

Falls can absolutely be fatal for an elderly nursing home resident.  A hip fracture can be fatal.  A head injury can clearly be fatal.  Any type of significant injury may limit their mobility.  This increases their risk for pneumonia.  It increases their risk for skin breakdown.  And it puts them at risk for future problems.  Falls are very serious problems in nursing homes and they must be handled that way by the nursing home taking care of your loved one.  

If someone you love has been neglected or abused in a nursing home, please call us here 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.

Read more of our nursing home fall articles here:

Falls in Nursing Homes Are Preventable With Adequate Supervision
Ohio Nursing Home Falls Often Result in Life Changing Consequences for Seniors
Can Falls Be Prevented in a Nursing Home?

Continuing Healthcare at Adams Lane

Continuing Healthcare at Adams Lane is a 140 bed facility located at 1856 Adams Lane in Zanesville, Ohio. As you can see from our blog, there are at least 3 Continuing Healthcare facilities on our list of the worst nursing homes in Ohio. This nursing home is also part of the Certus Healthcare chain of nursing homes.

The Certus Healthcare chain has an average performance of 2 out of 5 stars, which is substantially below the national average of 3. And its average for staffing is 1.7, which is also substantially below the national average.

The Continuing Healthcare at Adams Lane nursing home has been cited for abusing
its residents.
– It received a federal fine of $26,685.00 on July 23, 2025.
– It received a federal fine of $15,593.00 on September 6, 2023.
– It received a very large federal fine of $156,634.00 on February 1, 2023.

This nursing home has an overall rating of 1 out of 5 stars, which is much below average.
– It has a health inspection rating of 1 out of 5 stars, which is much below average.
– It has a staffing rating of 2 out of 5 stars, which is below average.

This nursing home's overall rating of 1 out of 5 stars places it in the bottom 20% of all
facilities reviewed.

During the period August 2023 through July 2024, this facility had a documented pattern of poor care each and every month and was being closely monitored by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The nursing home has paid 8 fines in the last 3 years totaling $510,056.00. On February 1, 2023, state nursing home surveyors found that Continuing Healthcare at Adams Lane caused immediate jeopardy to its residents. In 9 separate written deficiencies, state surveyors found that the facility caused actual harm to its residents between November 2015 and February of 2023.

The facility was flagged by CMS for possible abuse or neglect and received severe deficiencies indicating a risk to residents' safety. The facility has rated poor for consistent weekend-to-weekday staffing.

In 2020, 91.3 percent of the days of that year, 334 out of 366 days, were staffed below 2 hours of nurse’s aid time per resident per day. This is well below recommended minimum for safe care.

As we have reported repeatedly on this blog, if a nursing home does not have sufficient staff, they cannot provide care to their residents. They also cannot keep their residents safe. The aids do the bulk of the work in any nursing home. The fact that this nursing home has an insufficient number of aids working, puts all of its residents at risk.

According to consumer complaints, residents are left without accessible call buttons while bedridden. Some residents were left undressed for days at a time. People also complained about an unresponsive staff.

We strongly recommend that anyone who has a loved one at this nursing home move their loved one to a better nursing home. If anyone is considering putting their loved one in this nursing home, we strongly recommend that you consider other options.

If someone you love has been neglected or abused in a nursing home, please call us at 1 800 OHIO LAW as we would be happy to talk with you and help you in any way that we can.

Ohio Nursing Homes Need to be Properly Staffed 24 Hours a Day, 365 Days a Year.

Here at The Dickson Firm, we receive many calls from people who have visited their loved one over the holidays and have concerns about their care. Many people do not live near enough to their loved one to see them in person on a daily basis. They talk to them over the phone. They have other family members who live close check in on them. However, when they see them in person, they often have concerns about their care.

One of the things to remember is that nursing home residents need care 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. They need the same level of care every single day. Every single day, nursing home residents who need assistance need to be helped to get up out of bed. They need help with toileting. They need help with bathing. They need help with eating. And they need the same level of help every single day. This may seem like a very simple statement. However, we see many, many nursing homes who are understaffed around the holidays.

While we certainly understand that it is challenging to maintain proper staffing around the holidays, nursing homes have an obligation to give their residents proper care at all times. Of course, people want to be home with their families on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. Of course, people want to be with their families over Thanksgiving. Of course, people want to have time off during July 4 weekend or Labor Day weekend or Memorial Day weekend.

However, it is the obligation of the owners and the operators of the nursing home to make sure that their residents receive proper care every single day. Nursing homes get paid the same amount to care for each resident every single day.

Nursing homes get paid the same amount on Christmas Day as they do on January 12 to take care of their residents. Nursing homes owe the same duty to their residents every single day. They owe a duty to their residents to keep them safe. They owe a duty to their residents to provide them with proper care. They owe a duty to their residents to make sure that their needs are met. They owe a duty to their residents to provide them with adequate supervision to prevent accidents. These duties do not change on Christmas Day or New Year's Day or during the Super Bowl. These duties are the same every single day.

If someone you love 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.

Nursing homes need to communicate to their staff, just like all healthcare organizations, that they have to provide the same level of care every single day. Nursing homes have to talk with their staff about the fact that people are going to have to work on Christmas Day. They are going to have to work on New Year's Day. They are going to have to work during Thanksgiving.

Healthcare workers often cannot be with their families when they would like to be because they have an obligation to take care of their residents and their patients. Everyone who works in healthcare understands this. They understand that they need to provide care to their patients and their residents at all times. This includes during the holidays.

So what can you do? If you are visiting a loved one over the holidays, make sure you go to the nursing home during all different times of the day. Make sure you go in the morning. Make sure you go at lunch time. Make sure you go in the evening. And make sure that you see an adequate number of employees taking care of the resident.

If you are sitting in your resident's room, push their call light. See how long it takes for someone to respond. If you are waiting for 30 minutes or an hour for someone to respond to a call light, imagine what goes on when you are not there. Imagine what happens when your loved one is there by themselves.

Make sure you observe your loved one at meal time. If they need help eating, is someone helping them? One of the biggest things that we see in the cases that we review are nursing homes residents who need
assistance with eating who do not get it. We review the chart of somebody who is malnourished or dehydrated and we find out that while they were supposed to have somebody help them eat every meal, often the food was just dropped off in their room where it lay uneaten until somebody took it away.

And the thing that is really troubling is that nobody recognized that the resident was not eating. The person that dropped the food off did not check their chart to see that they needed assistance with eating. And the person that picked the tray up did not note that it was untouched and did not tell anybody that that resident was not getting proper nutrition.

Nutrition and dehydration are huge problems in nursing homes. They lead to skin breakdown. They lead to infection. They lead to the resident becoming weak and less mobile, which leads to all kinds of problems. Residents who become weak and less mobile and spend more time in bed suffer more skin breakdown. They are susceptible to pneumonia. It also causes their muscles to atrophy. The more muscle a person loses, the less mobile they are, the more prone they are to fall. It makes it more difficult for them to balance.

We see many residents who were admitted to the nursing home to get physical therapy and occupational
therapy and instead, are left to sit in their bed all day without anybody providing the care and the
therapy that they need.

When you visit your loved one in the nursing home, do you see staff? Is there somebody at the nurses' station? Do you see nurses and aides walking around, going into the residents' rooms? As indicated above, when you push the call light does somebody come? At mealtimes, is somebody there to help your loved one eat?

If you are thinking about admitting someone to a nursing home, ask the director of nursing or the administrator how they maintain proper staffing during the holidays. Ask them what the staff ratios are. During the nightshift on the wing where your loved one resides, how many nurses and how many aides are on duty, and how many residents are they expected to take care of. These are very important questions.

One of the biggest causes of neglect and abuse in nursing homes is understaffing. Nursing homes simply do not have enough people to care for their residents. This is not because they cannot afford to have enough people care for their residents.

Nursing homes make millions of dollars. They purposely understaff so the nursing homes can make more money. Every nursing home only has a certain number of beds. Once those beds are filled, the nursing home is earning as much money as it can. The only way to improve profits beyond that is to reduce costs. The largest line item on any nursing home budget is staffing. Nursing homes routinely replace RNs with LPNs. They replace LPNs with nurse's aids. They staff the facility with the people who they can pay the least. This leaves the residents with very few qualified, well-trained people to take care of them. This leads to falls. It leads the residents being neglected into developing bedsores. It leads to all kinds of issues.

If someone you love 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.