Articles Posted in Physical Abuse

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An 81-year-old nursing home resident beat his 94-year-old roommate to death with a closet rod in their Laguna Hills nursing home. Sheriff’s have arrested William McDougall of Mission Viejo for causing the death, and he has been booked for murder. The victim, Manh Van Nguyen of Laguna Woods, was pronounced dead upon arrival to Saddleback Memorial Hospital.

l9oh7z-l9oh6tmcdougall.jpg The motive in the killing is unclear. Both men were residents at Palm Terrace Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center, a licensed skilled nursing facility in Laguna Hills. (More info about the facility here) “What prompted the attack is still under investigation. Obviously, this is very unusual,” sheriff’s spokesperson Jim Amormino told the media. Staff at the nursing home have apparently told sheriff’s investigators that there no prior conflicts between McDougall and Nguyen.

What causes violence such as this in the nursing home? It could be a number of things. First, it is not uncommon for residents with memory impairment such as Alzheimer’s disease to act aggressively toward caregivers and others. Our law firm has represented victims of peer-on-peer abuse in the past. Another possibility is medications. What medications was McDougall on (or not on) that might have contributed to this offense. And, of course, maybe McDougall is just a violent person. No doubt all of this will be uncovered in the criminal investigation, which is just starting.

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It was announced this morning that six nursing home workers were arrested for playing a cruel prank on several residents at the Valley View Skilled Nursing Facility. According to a release from the California Attorney General’s office, the employees applied a slippery ointment cream over the bodies of seven elderly nursing home residents to make them “slippery” for the oncoming shift. It is believed that the residents were selected because all suffered from advanced dementia, and could not object to the mistreatment.

“As part of a cruel and shocking prank, these caregivers abused defenseless elders,” AG Jerry Brown said. “This is despicable behavior by people placed in a position of trust.”

After an investigation by the California Bureau of Elder Abuse, the district attorney’s office has filed a misdemeanor criminal charge against each employee for injury to elder or dependent adult; battery committed on elder or a dependent adult; conspiracy; and battery committed while on hospital property.

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Disability Rights California, a non-profit that advocates for the rights of the disabled, recently released a report finding that the physical abuse of disabled adults in nursing homes are frequently not treated as crimes. The study analyzed 12 cases, including the following

• For months, a middle aged nursing home resident suffering from cerebral palsy with cognitive impairment was paraded naked and soaking wet in front of others after being forced by staff to take cold showers. Despite many witnesses, nothing was done.

• A disabled resident in his 40s was punched in the mouth by a staff member and then slapped, drawing blood. When he complained, it took days for the facility to report it to authorities. No charges were brought.

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We blogged earlier about the $7.75 million dollar verdict a 71-year-old stroke victim was awarded after she proved to a civil jury that she was abused by caregivers in her nursing home. The lady’s family decided to place a hidden camera near the bed of Maria Arellano, and caught some ghastly footage of an attendant pulling the elderly woman’s hair, bending her fingers and neck, and treating her violently in the shower. Now, as expected, the defendant, Fillmore Convalescent Center, plans on appealing the verdict.

It’s attorney Thomas Beach told the Ventura County Star, “We strongly disagree with the decision and will be taking all appropriate legal steps to set aside the verdict.” Strongly disagree? Of course he disagrees; he told the jury to give her nothing.

What makes this case most interesting is that the plaintiff attorney Greg Johnson made a settlement demand of $500,000 long before the trial. He had compelling video, and a great story, and not only did the nursing home ignore his demand, they never offered him a penny.

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A Ventura nursing home called Fillmore Convalescent Center, its owner, and one of its employees were hit with a $7.75 million verdict yesterday after a jury found them liable for elder abuse. It has to be one of the largest verdicts in California in a case involving nursing home abuse or neglect.

The facts are egregious. In 2006, the family of 71-year-old Maria Arellano, a stroke victim who was also non-verbal, began to notice suspicious bruising. They complained to the nursing home administration, but it failed to look into it. The family then placed a hidden camera in Ms. Arellano’s room, which caught caregiver Monica Garcia slapping Arellano, pulling her hair, bending her fingers, and treating her violently. When the tape was revealed, Garcia was charged with criminal acts, and the family brought an elder abuse lawsuit against the nursing home.

The lawyer for Arellano, Greg Johnson, must have done an excellent job. He told the Ventura County Star that he offered to settle the case for $500,000, but was rebuffed. The nursing home, through its attorney Tom Beach, never offered a dime to resolve the case. “There was a lot of arrogance,” said Johnson.

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California should take heed. Illinois has been housing mentally ill felons with the elderly in state nursing homes and the results have not been pretty. An elderly woman was raped by an ex-convict, a frail man had his throat slashed, and in one home a wheelchair-bound man died of massive head injuries that a doctor said it looked like he was hit with a baseball bat.

According to one report, mentally ill patients make up over 15% of Illinois’ nursing home patient population, and among them are approximately 3,000 ex-felons with histories of serious crimes. Nursing home owners downplay that numbers of violent attacks, arguing they are miniscule in context to the whole, but there is a growing concern. The states largest nursing home owner’s association has advocated an end to the practice, asking state officials to create separate facilities for those residents who may pose a danger to others.

While the population of U.S. residents is aging, those who can afford to do so are opting from home health or assisted living care over traditional nursing home or convalescent hospitals.

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After 15 years of bouncing from nursing home to nursing home, and living with the indignities, the mother of a quadriplegic and brain injured daughter had had enough. On Sunday, September 13, Diana Harden wrote a note to a television news station exposing the problems she encountered trying to care for her daughter, then went to the nursing and shot her daughter to death, before turning the gun on herself.

In her letter to ABC news in the San Francisco Bay area, Harden spoke of the years of abuse and neglect her daughter endured in her nursing home. Yvette Harden, suffered a major brain injury and quadriplegia in a car accident 15 years earlier, and spent the last six years at the Oakland Springs Care Center. Oakland Springs is a nursing facility that had 54 complaints lodged against it in 2008 (which is an astonishing amount), and hundreds of deficiencies.

The letter attempts to explain, “the deaths of my daughter and myself.” In it, Harden says that that nurses called her daughter a “big fat pig,” and that they would “wash her like a car” in the shower. To punish the daughter, Harden claims, the water would be turned cold until she screamed. As a result, Harden wrote that her daughter has been “begging” her to end her life for over two years. The stress was too much.

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When police came to a San Bernardino board-and-care home looking for 23-year-old Trevor Castro, they found Castro and a whole lot more. Upon arrival they found a bucket of urine outside the door, and inside found outright squalor. The discovery led to the arrest of the home’s owner, 61-year-old Pensri Sophar Dalton, who is currently being held on 16 counts of felony elder abuse.

According to reports, Dalton, who was called “Mama Sophar,” ran a prison-like home – which was unlicensed – for 22 elderly and mentally ill residents in San Bernardino County. The home was surrounded by cinderblock walls with barbed wire atop. Several residents lived in converted chicken coops with no plumbing. A bucket was used for a toilet.

“None of [the chicken coop rooms] were up to code,” said City Atty. James Penman. “They had some with padlocks on the outside and no emergency exits, which concerned us because it could be used to lock people in as well as lock people out. The smell of urine was horrific; it permeated the entire place.”

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Aggressive behavior by nursing home residents is on the rise, and is becoming a big problem in nursing homes and residential care facilities around the country.

“Resident-on-resident aggression is substantially more common than previously thought,” said Dr. Karl Pillemer, a Cornell University gerontologist. “While they are mentally impaired, they are not physically impaired. They can do considerable damage.”

It is estimated that roughly half of Americans over the age of 85 suffer from Alzheimer’s disease or some other form of dementia. With the population of elderly set to explode in the next 20 years – those 65 or older will make up 20 percent of the U.S. population – most experts agree that the problem is only going to get worse.

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Police arrested a nursing home resident after he punched a fellow resident because he thought the man was stealing his food. According to new accounts, Ardyce Nauden was charged with aggravated battery after punching 72-year-old and wheelchair-bound Andres Cardona in the face, knocking him unconscious.

Nauden allegedly stated, “He was trying to steal my food and that is why I hit him. I held onto the bed with my right hand and hit him with my left hand.”

Peer-on-peer resident abuse in the nursing home setting is not uncommon. A study by Cornell University found that aggression and violence between residents is more prevalent than abuse or neglect from nursing home employees. According to the Cornell study, peer abuse is nursing home is a problem that has received little attention.

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