A resident at the Renaissance at Hillside nursing home in Hillside, Illinois fell from her window, 14 feet off the ground, into the bushes outside. She was taken to a local hospital and was diagnosed with a wrist fracture.
The resident was a known risk for wandering and was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. According to the report from the Illinois Department of Public Health, she had been found wandering several times in days prior to the incident.
What makes this case a nursing home neglect issue is the nature of safety in a nursing home. Families put their loved ones in nursing homes when they are no longer capable of caring for them. Nursing homes are obligated to take all steps to prevent the people in their care from coming to preventable harm.
To say that Alzheimer’s disease is a terrible thing is an absurd understatement. The real effort, for people who come face to face with the disease, is to determine which aspect of the disease is the most terrible.
As a nursing home lawyer, I’ve spoken to many people whose loved ones suffered from Alzheimer’s, and I’ve seen enough of the pain to understand some part of what it does to the immediate victim as well as to their families.
The person suffering from the disease goes through 7 stages. Everyone progresses through these stages at a different rate, but progress through them they will. Each stage gets progressively worse, of course, but the sixth stage introduces major personality changes. These changes fill the victim with abject, unadulterated terror.
Often, that terror involves their caregivers. Alzheimer’s patients become convinced they are being held against their will and tortured. They believe their loved ones are impostors or aliens. They try to escape with all the cunning and determination that you would exhibit if you were being held prisoner in a strange hospital.
They’re living a waking nightmare – a horror movie that never ends. Nursing homes have an obligation to protect them from themselves.
If you have a loved one who has been injured in a nursing home, and you feel they were the victims of nursing home neglect, contact my law offices for a free and confidential evaluation of your case.
Other blog posts on nursing home falls:
Fall from commode at Palm Terrace in Mattoon
Failure to use safety equipment at Caseyville Rehab
Resident dropped from lift at Claremont Rehab in Buffalo Grove
Resident wanders from Good Samaritan Society in Mount Carroll