Virginia Nursing Home Abuse
Nursing Home Abuse News in the State of
Virginia:
May 25, 2004
"Virginia Assisted Living Fails to Deliver on Promises to Alzheimer's Patients"
More than four million Americans suffer from Alzheimer's disease, and many are unable to live at home due to their levels of dementia. For the families of Alzheimer's victims, finding the right assisted living facility can provide a sense of comfort, knowing that their loved ones are being cared for and protected in a way that would not be possible through home care.
However, recent incidents in managed care facilities throughout Virginia may give some families pause. Failure to properly monitor dementia patients has led to deaths and injuries that advocacy groups and families find unacceptable.
68 year old Thomas Earl Thomas was living in a retirement home with a "lockdown" wing for Alzheimer's patients when he wandered out an open front door and was killed by traffic on a nearby freeway. John Sagnier, 88, fell out a window at a similar facility, Carole Ann Petersen, 66, choked to death while eating unsupervised. Similar problems have been reported in various Virginia facilities, including three patients who strayed undetected and died from exposure, one resident struck by a car, and another killed by a train not far from where Thomas died.
"This is an enormous issue, and there is an enormous gulf between what marketing material advertises and what in fact is actually happening" to residents with Alzheimer's or other cognitive impairments, says Karen Love, founder of the Consumer Consortium on Assisted Living, a national nonprofit consumer group based in Falls Church, Virginia.
In recent years, Virginia, along with many other states, has increased security at facilities housing dementia residents. In some cases, facilities are required to have at least two staff members on duty as well as a method for monitoring security. However, records and interviews reveal that Virginia inspectors have increasingly reprimanded homes for taking in dementia patients that they are not able to properly care for, for failing to have adequate staff and security systems for monitoring patients, employing untrained caregivers and failing to protect dementia patients from hurting one another.
The nation's largest chain of assisted living, Sunrise Senior Living, has 370 assisted living operations, including 27 in the state of Virginia. Although it advertises special services for dementia patients, including security systems, increased supervision and "safe and stimulating" surroundings at around $200 a day, licensing records show about 80 violations related to seriously mentally impaired residents from 2000 through early this year. An internal email written early in 2003 by the head of the Virginia state licensing division called problems in general at Sunrise facilities "very bad, high risk and inexcusable." Another administrator said that the chain had made improvements, but also pointed out problems caused by aging security system's and inaccurate assessments of residents' impairments. According to that administrator "our greatest concern. is the number of recent wandering incidents."
Residents and their families are starting to demand answers for poor or insufficient care, and a number of lawsuits have recently been filed against various assisted living communities. Among these is a $240,000 settlement paid to the family of Thomas Earl Thomas for his wrongful death.
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