Many of our clients have been forced to make the difficult decision to put someone they love in a nursing home.  Our attorneys talk with many people, on a regular basis, about this challenging decision.  Many clients have a lot of difficulty making this choice after hearing horror stories about the care, or lack thereof, that some nursing homes provide.  Some people simply feel guilty that they cannot care for their mom or their dad on their own and wonder if their parent will receive the appropriate level of care while in the nursing home.  The reality, for many people, is that a nursing home is a necessity.  Whether it is due to working a full time job, not living in close proximity to their parents, or not having a large support system around to offer help, many people are not able to truly provide their mom or their dad with full time care.  Further, it's often not safe for people to take care of their parents on their own.  If your loved one needs 24 hour care, supervision, and/or periodic medication they truly need to be in a facility where they can get appropriate care from qualified individuals.  So if you've made the difficult decision to put your loved one in a care facility, how do you know if they are safe in the nursing home? 

Making Sure Your Parent is Safe in the Nursing Home

Oftentimes, nursing home residents are unable to communicate for a variety of reasons.  This can make it difficult to monitor and ensure they are getting quality care.  So how can you be sure they are in good hands and safe in the nursing home? 

• Visit at different times. You want to see what the care is like at the nursing home at all different times of the day.  Go in the morning, when they're having breakfast.  Go very early in the morning and see what time they get your loved one up.  Go at lunch time, in the afternoon, and the evening.  Visit around dinner time.  Visit late at night.  You are permitted to visit your loved one whenever you choose.  A nursing home is not a hospital and it's certainly not a prison.  There should not be restricted visiting hours.  If you want to visit your loved one early, you should be welcome to do so.  If you want to visit your loved one late, that should be allowed.  See what the staffing is like on every shift.  Make sure there are plenty of people around.  Go into your loved one's room and push the call light to see how long it takes for someone to respond.  
• Keep your eyes open. How do things look?  Are there multiple residents in the hallway, who seem like they need care?  Are there enough staff members around to offer care to the residents?  Are there people who seem like they're falling out of their chairs?  Do you hear alarms going off and nobody responding to them?  Observe the situation.
• Do online research. At www.medicare.gov/care-compare, you can look up specific nursing homes and see what their ratings are with respect to staffing and overall conditions.  You can also see if there are past penalties against specific nursing homes. 
• Talk with other families. Ask them about their experiences in the nursing home and the care that their loved one is receiving. 

Monitoring Your Loved One’s Condition

One of the biggest challenges facing nursing home residents is bed sores.  One of the most common areas for a person to develop a bed sore is their sacral area or their buttocks.  Most people don't want to look at their parents' buttocks or sacral region.  However, if you have a suspicion that they have any kind of skin breakdown, you may have to.  Ask a nurse or an aide to help you.  Ask them to check on your loved one's skin.  Specifically, ask them directly if your loved one has any skin breakdown.  If they do, that situation needs to be closely monitored.  They need to see a physician or a wound nurse to get proper care.  The worse a bed sore gets, the harder it is to heal.  Many bed sores are fatal.  So if your loved one has the beginnings of skin breakdown, they need to get immediate attention to heal before it gets worse. 

Does your loved one have any unexplained injuries?  Do they have bruises or cuts?  Do they have any injuries to their head?  Do they have any injuries that appear to be the result of a fall?  These are very important things for you to monitor.  If your loved one has any visible injury, you need to ask the nursing home how it occurred.  If they don't know, you need to figure it out.  If they can't give you a satisfactory explanation, think about moving your loved one out of the nursing home. 

Is your loved one's weight remaining stable?  If they are losing weight, is it intentional?  Some people need to lose weight for their health.  If they're losing weight intentionally, then that's fine.  However, if they are losing weight unintentionally, that may be a sign of a problem; either an illness or neglect.  Proper nutrition and proper hydration are very important for your loved one's health.  Do they seem to be well hydrated?  Do they get sufficient fluids? 

When you take your loved one to the doctor, make sure you ask multiple questions about their condition.  Are they healthy?  Is their weight stable?  How do their labs look? 

The Dickson Firm Can Help You Keep Your Loved One Safe in the Nursing Home

There's absolutely no reason why someone should not get appropriate care in a nursing home.  Tragically, many nursing homes in Ohio provide substandard care to their residents on a daily basis.  They are understaffed, neglect their residents, and fail to provide them with adequate supervision and respond to their needs.  Tragically, our nursing home abuse and neglect attorney team at The Dickson Firm, receives calls on a regular basis from families whose loved one has either suffered injury or tragically died as a result of neglect and abuse in a nursing home.  The best thing that you can do is to monitor your loved one as best you can, visit them often at all different times of the day, and pay close attention to their condition to see if they're being treated properly.  If you have any misgivings about the care they are receiving at the nursing home, think very seriously about moving them to a different nursing home, where they can receive appropriate care. 

If you have any questions or concerns about the care that someone you love has received in a nursing home, please feel free to contact us online or call us any time at 1-800-OHIO LAW to discuss your case.