Articles Tagged with riverside county nursing homes

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Older adults who reside in nursing homes or assisted-living facilities in Riverside County or elsewhere in Southern California should be able to expect that the facility where they live has taken sufficient safety precautions to prevent resident injuries. However, nursing homes throughout the state, and indeed across the country, often have safety issues that can result in resident injuries. Depending on the particular hazard, injuries can range from minor to severe. In many of these cases where an injury does occur, it may be possible to hold the nursing home accountable by filing a nursing home neglect claim. Our Riverside County nursing home abuse and neglect attorneys can assist you, and in the meantime, we can tell you more about common safety issues in Southern California nursing homes.

Fall Concerns

Nursing homes have a duty to ensure that their facilities are safe and do not prevent fall hazards, including those that could result in dangerous slips and falls or trips and falls. Common fall hazards, according to the AHRQ, include a lack of grip bars in bathrooms, slick flooring, torn or damaged carpeting, lack of handrails in stairwells, and liquid spills that go uncleaned.

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Staff at nursing homes and assisted living facilities often discuss being overworked, feeling burnt out, and being employed at facilities where they do not earn enough money to stay engaged in their jobs. When employees at nursing homes and assisted living facilities feel overworked, underappreciated, and burnt out, the overall quality of their work can suffer, which can ultimately have a negative effect on the residents of these facilities for whom those workers provide the necessary care. Could an increase in wages for workers at nursing homes and assisted living facilities reduce the incidents of nursing home neglect or nursing home negligence in Southern California? 

According to a recent article in McKnight’s Senior Living, California’s Governor Gavin Newsom recently signed new legislation into law that will increase the minimum wage for workers at nursing homes and assisted living facilities to $25 per hour. Our Riverside County nursing home negligence lawyers want to discuss the potential impact of the increase in pay on residents at these facilities throughout the state.

Details of the Newly Signed Legislation

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Seniors residing in Riverside County nursing homes can sustain injuries in a wide range of circumstances, and in many of those cases, the facility may be liable. In some situations, elder abuse or neglect may be the cause of a resident’s injury, while other instances of harm might result from the facility’s negligence in maintaining safety protocols. Abuse or neglect in a nursing home can take many different forms, from acts of intentional physical or psychological abuse to passive neglect that can result in injuries like bed sores. It is important to know that the use of physical restraints can constitute unlawful abuse, and it may be possible to hold the facility accountable. Our Riverside County nursing home abuse attorneys can tell you more about physical restraints, and we can discuss your case with you today.

Knowing the Law on Physical Restraints

The use of restraints among nursing home residents has been a concern for elder safety advocates for decades, and the federal Nursing Home Reform Act was intended in part to “crystallize a growing consensus against the use of restraints throughout all sectors of nursing home service delivery,” and it ultimately “led to a complete change in how restraint use is viewed,” according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). That law clarified “the right to be free from . . . any physical or chemical restraints imposed for purposes of discipline or convenience and not required to treat the resident’s medical symptoms.”

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Since nursing home abuse and neglect in Riverside County can take many forms, it can be challenging to know whether or not a specific sign is likely to indicate nursing home abuse. It is imperative to keep in mind that any sign or symptom that raises concern should be investigated. Given that even small changes in a senior’s behavior can indicate a much larger problem, it is critical to take any concerns seriously. At the same time, some signs and symptoms of nursing home abuse and neglect are more common than others, so you should be particularly attuned to certain indicators. The following are ten of the most common signs of elder abuse in nursing homes and assisted living facilities in Southern California.

1. Unexplained Bruises and Other Soft Tissue Injuries

Anytime a senior has unexplained bruises, cuts, burn marks, or any other related injuries, they should be taken extremely seriously. They are often a sign of physical abuse.

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Older adults, including nursing home and assisted-living facility residents in Riverside County, may be more likely to suffer serious fall injuries than younger people. Yet it is important to remember that falls are preventable, and nursing homes have a duty to take steps to ensure resident safety. If a fall does occur in a Riverside County nursing home or assisted-living facility, it is important to seek advice from a Riverside County nursing home negligence lawyer who can determine whether the facility may be liable. In the meantime, the following are five things you should know about falls and nursing homes.

1. Falls are Extremely Common But Preventable Among Older Adults

Falls occur much more frequently than you might think among older adults. Indeed, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there were 36,000 fall-related deaths among adults aged 65 and up in 2020, which makes falls the “leading cause of injury death for that group.” Around 3 million older adults experience injuries in falls that require treatment in an emergency department, and approximately 800,000 require hospitalization. Among older adults, about 20% of all falls result in serious injury.

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While hospice fraud in Riverside County and elsewhere in Southern California is not new, California has been attempting to crack down on hospice fraud over the last year. Indeed, according to a report from ProPublica, hospice fraud has been drawing more attention recently, and it is linked to nursing home negligence and abuse throughout the country. What is hospice fraud, and how does it relate to residents of nursing homes receiving negligent or substandard care? Our experienced Riverside County nursing home neglect attorneys can provide you with more information.

Learning More About Hospice Fraud

What is hospice fraud, exactly? And what is the relationship between hospice fraud and allegations of nursing home negligence? In short, as the ProPublica report explains, hospice facilities can receive money from Medicare (or Medi-Cal in California) for patients at the hospice facility. You might be thinking that this makes perfect sense, but consider this: the Hospice Foundation of America explains that hospice is a specific type of “medical care for people with an anticipated life expectancy of 6 months or less when cure is not an option and the focus shifts to symptom management and quality of life.” If hospice is only for people who will not get better, why are nursing home residents with broken bones or other temporary conditions and injuries moving into hospices?

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Nobody wants to think about the risks of nursing home abuse in Riverside County or elsewhere in Southern California, but nursing home abuse and neglect do occur with relative frequency and can result in debilitating and life-threatening injuries among older adults. When you have an elderly loved one in a nursing home in Riverside County or anywhere else in the area, it is important to know about common signs and symptoms of abuse so that you can take steps quickly to stop the abuse and hold the facility accountable. Given that many family members visit elderly relatives in nursing homes during the holiday season, the early days of the new year are a good time to assess a loved one’s quality of life in their nursing home and to consider any signs of abuse or neglect.

Our Riverside County nursing home abuse and neglect lawyers can tell you more about some of the most common indicators of abuse and neglect in California nursing homes.

Unexplained Injuries

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Nobody wants to think about the risks of injury that an elderly loved one could face in a nursing home or assisted living facility in Riverside County. Yet nursing home negligence and elder abuse and neglect are more common than you might expect. As a result, seniors in nursing homes and residential care facilities for the elderly (RCFEs) sustain injuries that could have been avoided with proper care. How can you prove that the facility is responsible for a resident’s injuries? And what type of evidence can be used in a Southern California nursing home negligence lawsuit? Our experienced Riverside County nursing home neglect lawyers at our firm can provide you with more information.

Understanding the Elements of a Nursing Home Negligence Case

First, in order to prove liability in a nursing home negligence lawsuit, you should know that you will need to prove the elements of a negligence claim. While the specific and detailed elements of your case will be based on the circumstances and facts surrounding your elderly loved one’s injuries, the following are the general elements of a negligence claim in California:

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When you have concerns about an elderly loved one’s safety in a nursing home, it can be difficult to identify signs and symptoms of nursing home abuse. Under some circumstances, it might seem as though there are logical explanations for certain indicators of abuse or neglect, while in other situations, the signs and symptoms of abuse simply might not be obvious. While it is critical for friends and family members of nursing home residents to know how to spot indicators of abuse, it is also important to remember that residents may be able to provide key information about neglect or negligence taking place at the nursing home. Although seniors with Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of dementia may not be able to voice their concerns directly, certain questions may be able to provide helpful information.

When you have a loved one in a nursing home, you should learn about the types of questions you can ask to identify indications of abuse. The following types of questions may be able to reveal abuse or neglect.

Questions Concerning Daily Activities

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Nursing home residents in Riverside County who suffer from Alzheimer’s disease or another form of dementia often become victims of nursing home abuse and neglect. Not only can Alzheimer’s patients be overmedicated with drugs that are inappropriate and that can have dangerous side effects, but they can be targets of abuse for a variety of reasons. The following are five things to know about Alzheimer’s disease and nursing home abuse in Southern California. 

  1. Nursing Home Abuse Against Alzheimer’s Patients Can Take Many Forms

Nursing home abuse and neglect involving Alzheimer’s patients can take many different forms, including physical abuse, emotional or psychological abuse, sexual abuse, willful deprivation, and passive neglect. Each of these forms of abuse has distinctive signs and symptoms, and sometimes those symptoms can be difficult to identify.

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