Baton Rouge Nursing Home Abuse & Neglect Attorneys

What does nursing home abuse or neglect mean?

A nursing home can be found liable for abuse if the harm it causes is intentional, or if the abuse occurred due to neglect. A nursing home can also be found liable if they cause harm due to any type of unreasonable care.

The types of abuse claims we handle include:

• Physical abuse. Physical abuse involves any type of force or any type of harm to any part of the body. Examples include punching, slapping, hitting, using chemical restraints, and using physical restraints. Denying medications, food, or other critical services are also forms of physical abuse.
• Sexual abuse. Sexual abuse involves nonconsensual sexual acts and the forced watching of sexual acts. Promises of better care in return for sex are also a form of sexual abuse. Sexual abusers may include the owners, workers, and residents of the nursing home.
• Emotional abuse. Emotional abuse involves yelling, intimidation, and other types of psychological pressures to control or punish a nursing home resident. Seniors with cognitive impairments are common targets of emotional abuse.
• Nursing home neglect in Baton Rouge occurs when the facility fails to provide competent care. Nursing homes must take proactive steps to ensure none of their residents fall, suffer from medication mistakes, develop bedsores, lack nutrition or hydration, lack proper hygiene, wander, or elope from the property. It’s inexcusable to abandon a resident. Intentional neglect is considered a form of abuse.

One other kind of abuse is financial abuse which involves taking advantage of a resident’s poor health for financial gain.

Nursing home medication negligence

Most seniors take drugs for their heart. Many take drugs for diabetes and other disorders. People with a disability also need their medications. Nursing homes need to ensure that residents receive the proper drugs at the proper time in the correct amounts – and in the proper manner (by injection or oral).

The US National Institute for Health (NIH) defines a medication error as:

...any preventable event that may cause or lead to inappropriate medication use or patient harm while the medication is in the control of the healthcare professional, patient, or consumer. Such events may be related to professional practice, health care products, procedures, and systems, including prescribing; order communication; product labeling, packaging, and nomenclature; compounding; dispensing; distribution; administration; education; monitoring; and use.

At Garcia & Artigliere, our Baton Rouge nursing home abuse and neglect lawyers work with physicians, including ER doctors and pharmacists, to show that nursing home medication errors are preventable. Baton Rouge nursing homes should:

• Have care plans for each resident that specify what medical conditions each resident has, what drugs he/she needs to take, and which doctors and family members to call if there are health emergencies. All possible complications should be reviewed.
• Record when each nursing home resident takes the prescribed drugs, and when refills are necessary.
• Provide quick and quality medical care if there are any adverse reactions to any drug.
• List the likely side effects of any drug.
• Review the risks of taking each medication with other drugs.

Delayed or denied treatment of stroke negligence

Baton Rouge nursing homes need to understand the signs a resident is having an ischemic or hemorrhaging stroke. One priority medication for patients suffering from an ischemic stroke is tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) which can save a resident’s life if the drug is taken within three hours from the time stroke symptoms start. tPA breaks up blood clots that prevent blood from reaching the brain. Prompt medical treatments can also help save the lives of anyone who is having hemorrhaging (bleeding in the brain) strokes.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) states that almost 200,000 people who have strokes die every year.