Nursing Home Residents Should Never Develop Bedsores

When you talk about nursing home abuse, a topic that comes up fairly often is bedsores. Bedsores or pressure sores happen when elderly individuals are neglected and not given the opportunity to care for themselves correctly. They occur specifically more often in cases where bedridden individuals are not properly turned to prevent long-term contact injuries.

Types of Bedsores

Although bedsores can be caused by friction or by a process called shearing, the vast majority of bedsores happen when an individual stays in contact with a surface for an excessive period of time. Hospital patients and nursing home residents are at highest risk for these bedsores to develop.

Bedsores are prevented merely by the process of turning. Nursing and clinical staff will come in and turn each patient on a regular basis, to preserve circulation and make sure that the pressure does not aggravate the skin and cause this dangerous condition.

When Bedsores Threaten

Bedsores can become a dangerous condition for residents. When bedsores do occur, they can quickly get worse. They can become infected and even lead to a deadly condition called sepsis. In these types of cases, time is of the essence, and immediate treatment is needed to save the individual’s life.

It really should never come to that. Qualified nursing homes understand the importance of turning individuals and examining them to prevent bedsores from occurring. This is just one of the issues that family members often are dealing with when they come to a nursing home abuse lawyer to try to understand their case better. Bedsores are a sign of nursing home negligence, along with other warning signs like improper medication regimens, unscheduled feeding, and other issues.

Types of Elder Abuse

In reality, there are many types of elder abuse to watch out for in a nursing home setting. Sometimes, the problems stem from lack of care- problems like bedsores are extremely unfortunate, in that they can threaten the health of the nursing home resident without any particular calculated plot by some nefarious caregiver – just “falling down on the job” can cause harm to a family member. But other types of elder abuse are deliberately cold-hearted – like financial abuse, emotional abuse, or even sexual abuse. All of these are in the cross-hairs of nursing home abuse attorneys who fight tirelessly for residents and their families.

In the Jacksonville, Florida area, talk to Dr. Steve Watrel about a potential nursing home abuse case. Steve Watrel is a trusted local nursing home abuse and neglect attorney who understands what families are up against when they want to report a problem with a family member who is a resident of a nursing home facility. Let this firm help out in assessing the situation and pursuing justice.