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- Abuse in an Iowa Nursing Home | Denver Nursing Home Abuse Attorney
The Des Moines Register reports that the administrator of a nursing home in rural Iowa faces state sanctions from the Iowa Board of Nursing Home Administrators for failing to take appropriate steps to... [MORE] - $3.2 Million Nursing Home Judgment | Denver Nursing Home Neglect Lawyer
The Denver Post reports that after a man died from complication from bedsores that he got while living in a Rocky Ford nursing home, his family has won a $3.2 million lawsuit against the home. The man... [MORE] - More Seniors Having Their Final Days at Home | Colorado Elder Law Attorney
Most people, when the time comes, would choose to die in the comfort and familiarity of their own home, if given a choice. While many of us will not be given a choice, according to a report in the New... [MORE] - Announcing the Administration for Community Living | Colorado Elder Abuse Attorney
The United States Department of Health and Human Services has announced the creation of the Administration for Community Living (ACL), in an organizational effort to more effectively and ensure that t... [MORE] - Reverse Mortgage Scams | Colorado Elder Abuse Attorney
According to a report in the Los Angeles Times, a loan officer who was recently convicted for his role in a scheme to cheat elderly homeowners out of money should serve as a reminder that the elderly ... [MORE]
Abuse in an Iowa Nursing Home | Denver Nursing Home Abuse Attorney
The Des Moines Register reports that the administrator of a nursing home in rural Iowa faces state sanctions from the Iowa Board of Nursing Home Administrators for failing to take appropriate steps to prevent a resident at the facility from sexually assaulting fellow residents. Over the course of several months in 2008, a resident of the facility was accused by several other residents of sexual assault, mostly apparently in the form of inappropriate touching. The Iowa Board of Nursing Home Administrators believes that Mr. Worcester, whose father owns the facility, did not do enough, after the first report, to prevent subsequent incidents. In the years since these incidents, the facility has been cited by the state for various violations including unsanitary conditions, quality of care, and improper use of physical restraints.
Has your elder loved one been abused in a nursing home? Speak with a compassionate Denver nursing home abuse attorney immediately to discuss your options.
When you place your elderly loved ones in a nursing home, you are entrusting a great deal to the management of the facility. You are trusting that staff will look after the health of your family member, from simple everyday needs like food, bathing and laundry to medical care and even ensuring that interactions between residents are safe and healthy. In most cases, nursing home staff make every effort to provide for their residents the best that they can, but unfortunately, there are some cases in which nursing homes seem not to be concerned with the well-being of their residents.
If you have an elderly loved one whose level of care in a nursing home has become a cause for concern, it can be very difficult to know what to do. You want the best care for your family members, but it’s hard to know when something isn’t right. A dedicated Denver nursing home abuse attorney can help you understand your family’s rights, and provide resources for looking into the care of your loved one, including issues of safety and hygiene. William Meyer is a compassionate Denver nursing home abuse attorney who has helped many families in Colorado to ensure the health and safety of their elder loved ones. For more information and a FREE CONSULTATION, contact William today at (303)444-1618.
$3.2 Million Nursing Home Judgment | Denver Nursing Home Neglect Lawyer
The Denver Post reports that after a man died from complication from bedsores that he got while living in a Rocky Ford nursing home, his family has won a $3.2 million lawsuit against the home. The man entered Pioneer Healthcare Center in Rocky Ford in 2009. At first, he was able to walk around the facility with some help despite his Parkinson’s Disease. However, after a large bedsore developed late in 2010, he became bed-ridden. The large bedsore, which was hidden from his family, became worse and worse, until a nurse’s aide who was worried that the man would die told his son about it during a visit. Administration tried to prevent the son from moving his father to the hospital, where it turned out that he was malnourished and dehydrated, in addition to suffering from the bedsores. The doctors at the hospital believe that the bedsores were related to his death.
If you suspect neglect in the nursing home care of your loved one, contact a dedicated Denver nursing home neglect lawyer immediately to learn what help is available to you.
Sometimes, it becomes necessary to entrust the care of an elder loved one to a nursing home; at this time you are trusting that the nursing home will take the best care possible of your family member. Beyond simply treating a condition that made the person’s care difficult for him or herself, this also means caring for all aspects of the person’s physical health as well as their emotional well-being. Unfortunately, situations arise all too frequently in which nursing home residents receive care that just isn’t sufficient. Nursing homes are required to make sure that bedridden patients move several times a day, so that they don’t develop bedsores or other skin conditions that can become serious health problems. Dehydration, malnutrition and a lack of exercise are serious problems at too many nursing homes.
If you believe that a nursing home is not caring for an elderly family member properly, speak with an experienced Denver nursing home neglect lawyer immediately. William Meyer is dedicated to helping people in Denver and around Colorado ensure that their elder loved ones are not abused or neglected, but receive proper care. He can help you examine the care that your loved one is receiving, and direct you to agencies that can help secure their safety. Knowing what to do when someone isn’t getting the care they need is difficult; William can help. For more information and a FREE CONSULTATION, contact William at The Meyer Law Firm at (303)444-1618 today.
More Seniors Having Their Final Days at Home | Colorado Elder Law Attorney
Most people, when the time comes, would choose to die in the comfort and familiarity of their own home, if given a choice. While many of us will not be given a choice, according to a report in the New York Times, the percentage of Americans over age 85 who die in their homes has risen in recent years. On the other side, the number of Americans over 85 who have been hospital patients at the time of their death has been on the decline. On its face, this appears to be good news, given that it seems to fit with what people generally say that they want, however, statistics as usual tell only part of the story. These statistics tell only the place where the person was at the time of death, and do not relate the condition of the final days. Dr. Joan Teno, professor of community health and medicine at Brown Medical School has studied the final weeks of the lives of the elderly, and learned that in many cases, while people have died in their home, they may have been back and forth between home, hospital, and nursing home in their final days.
Another side of this issue is that while the percentage of elderly people who die in their home is increasing, and the percentage of elderly people who are dying in the hospital is decreasing, the percentage of elderly people who are dying in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities is also increasing. So while on the one hand, there is some good news, some of the news is not good. Dr. Teno notes that it is good that fewer elderly people are dying in intensive care units and in hospitals in general, but reminds that what is most important is the level of care that people receive in their final days.
With so many people dying in nursing homes and long-term care facilities, and with those numbers on the rise, if you have an elder loved one in that situation, being sure that he or she is receiving the proper care is more important than ever. If you have any concerns about the care or treatment of your elder loved one, speak with a compassionate Colorado Elder Law Attorney with your concerns. William Meyer has helped numerous families ensure the level of care of their elder loved ones, and can also help provide peace of mind that your family members are receiving the kind of care that they deserve. We all need to remember those who cared for us, when it comes time to care for them. For more information and a FREE CONSULTATION, contact William at The Meyer Law Firm at (303)444-1618
Announcing the Administration for Community Living | Colorado Elder Abuse Attorney
The United States Department of Health and Human Services has announced the creation of the Administration for Community Living (ACL), in an organizational effort to more effectively and ensure that the needs of the elderly and disabled are being met. From the ACL website:
All Americans – including people with disabilities and seniors – should be able to live at home with the supports they need, participating in communities that value their contributions. To help meet these needs, HHS is creating a new organization, the Administration for Community Living (ACL) with the goal of increasing access to community supports and full participation, while focusing attention and resources on the unique needs of older Americans and people with disabilities.
The ACL incorporates the already existing Administration on Aging, Administration on Developmental Disabilities, and Office on Disability. While the primary functions of this new office already existed, the belief of Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, is that the new organizational structure will allow these offices to work more effectively together to ensure that each of them is able to serve its function as efficiently as possible, providing the best possible services to the broadest range of people in need, in a way that is beneficial to everyone, including our communities. The hope is that the ACL will help our elderly and disabled community members to be a more integral part of their communities, while also suffering less abuse.
If an elderly loved one has suffered from abuse at the hands of a nursing facility or home caregiver, speak with a compassionate, dedicated Colorado elder abuse attorney as soon as possible to protect the health and dignity of your family member. William Meyer is an elder abuse attorney who has a great deal of experience protecting the legal rights, the dignity, and the health and well-being of Colorado’s elderly and disabled community. For more information and a FREE CONSULTATION, contact William at The Meyer Law Firm at (303)444-1618
Reverse Mortgage Scams | Colorado Elder Abuse Attorney
According to a report in the Los Angeles Times, a loan officer who was recently convicted for his role in a scheme to cheat elderly homeowners out of money should serve as a reminder that the elderly may be prone to deceit when it comes to money. In this case, the loan officer, along with several other people, including a title agent, was convincing people to refinance reverse mortgages, to his own personal benefit. It is important to remember that reverse mortgages can be a very useful for people who own their homes to make use of the equity that they have to ensure their own financial security. However, a disreputable person may be able to talk an elderly person into a large financial transaction that he or she does not understand. When this happens, the elderly person becomes susceptible to financial elder abuse.
COLORADO VETERAN, PHYSICALLY AND FINANCIALLY ABUSED, DIES – January, 2012 – Denver
Here is a case referred to us by C3 Initiatives, Inc. (Compassion, Caring & Community), a Colorado nonprofit, that works with front-range Veterans to provide housing, care, counseling and training.
“Financial loss can trigger a whole series of events that all too often, are fatal. One such story is of a member of my community who joined his God last week.
Lil’ Grandpa [respecting his anonymity] was a bit confused at times, fiercely independent at others, and always had an underlying air of anger about him that made him tough to deal with. However if you took the time to listen to the story – and he would tell it over and over – you began to understand that the source of his anger was really a mask for his deep felt pain.
Lil’ Grandpa had been married to his darling wife for more than sixty years when he lost her to a lengthy struggle with cancer. Upon the advice of his children, Lil’ Grandpa and his wife had moved into an assisted living facility so that she could receive the care she needed. He also gave financial control to his children in trust. When his wife died, he left the assisted living home, expecting to return to the home he had shared with his wife, after what he anticipated would be a brief stay with his son. What he found was that his home had been sold, his savings account depleted, and he was left with only his meager retirement income and social security – combined, it was less than $1,000 a month.
Whether it was because of misunderstandings or his children’s financial misappropriations – his anger erupted and led to a fist fight with his son. In the end, his son threw him out of the house – and out of his life. With his meager earnings, inability to navigate a complicated social safety net, and admittedly poor choices born out of grief and anger – Lil’ Grandpa soon found himself homeless half of the time, beaten by strangers outside of the shabby motels he stayed in the first few days each month, and – from his perspective – robbed of the money and home he had worked so hard to create – by his own children.
The story doesn’t end there. Always a survivor, and with the help of an angel in the form of a dedicated peer advocate, Lil’ Grandpa learned to live on his meager social security and retirement benefits. With help, he found an apartment in a nice subsidized housing program, and social security assigned someone to manage his money. The little apartment wasn’t home, yet Lil’ Grandpa was beginning to heal. Then the subsidized housing program increased his rent and suddenly he was faced with being out on the streets again. Making no excuse for him, it was all a bit much, and his fear drove him to act out badly – he took a knife and sliced the chairs in the waiting room of the facility. This ended with him in jail for the first time in his long life.
While some would argue that Lil’ Grandpa was not totally responsible for his actions because of his state of mind at the time – he didn’t make excuses. One could also say that it was inappropriate to send a little old man to jail – the Judge didn’t see it that way. So to jail he went, and when he got out 30 days later, Lil’ Grandpa went home to an apartment his peer advocate and payee had found that was all he could afford without a subsidy, and the only place that would accept him given his bad behavior.
The shabby apartment complex was riddled with predators – people who prey on the vulnerabilities of those with disabilities and the elderly. And a predator found Lil’ Grandpa pretty fast. A woman moved into his life and the signs of abuse began to show pretty quickly. Suddenly his peer advocate and payee couldn’t get to him on the phone. He was pawning his beloved jewelry, and his phone bill was astronomical — with calls to people from jail whom he didn’t know. Credit card bills began to arrive.
Then one night, his peer advocate received a call from an emergency room nurse. Lil’ Grandpa was in ICU and not expected to make it through the night. He had been the victim of an assault – found in a pool of blood in his kitchen. He did make it through that night – in fact he lived another three months. Enough time for all of his children to gather and discuss the division of his remaining assets before placing him in a nursing home where he was never visited. Enough time for the police to dismiss the assault as a fall and stroke – even though Lil’ Grandpa had called 911 for help the day before because of a domestic dispute. His slender disability check was suspiciously cashed the same day as the assault — at a liquor store around the corner. And, the initial diagnosis when he was admitted to the ER included blunt force trauma to the side of his head – not stroke.
And who will stand for Lil’ Grandpa – or all the other Lil’ Grandpas and Grandmas who are facing abuse each and every day in our country? Especially those who now find themselves without assets or the ability to hire the legal and financial experts they need to prove their claims, or even just tell their story? C3 Initiatives is committed to serving as a voice for these vulnerable souls, as well as to providing the professional supportive services many people living with disabilities and the frail elderly so desperately need.
C3 Initiatives offers an integrative menu of personalized services designed to help those living with disabilities and/or elderly persons, maintain the highest level of self-determination and independence possible. C3 is proud to have worked in partnership with The Meyer Law Firm to represent the rights of clients like Lil’ Grandpa, who most lawyers – and people — forget.”
For more information regarding C3 Initiatives, Inc. and its services to the community, visit their website at www.c3initiatives.com.
Already, 1 in 7 people over age 65 need in-home care, and nearly 40 percent of those older than 85 need some form of care, according to a recent fact sheet from the Urban Institute. As these numbers grow, so too does the amount of abuse suffered at the hands of those whom they are supposedly in a “caring” relationship with.
The National Elder Abuse Incidence Study conducted by the NCEA found that close to one-half million elderly adults in domestic settings were abused or neglected in 1996. (1) The study estimates that for every reported incident of elder abuse or neglect, five others go unreported. More than two-thirds of those committing elder abuse are members of the victims’ families. Nearly a quarter of those living in abusive situations suffer most from neglect that is often accompanied by financial exploitation.
William Meyer is a Colorado elder abuse attorney with offices in Boulder and Vail who is dedicated to protecting the legal rights of elders who are unable to care for themselves and their families. William will make sure that you understand your family’s rights. He can point you to the resources you need to educate yourself, and to protect your family. If suspicion of financial abuse is valid, William has more than two decades of experience working with the justice system; he can help you recover damages for mistreatment and financial exploitation. For more information and a free consultation, contact William at (303) 444-1618.
As nursing home care improves, some problems slow to mend
NATIONAL, USA Today, February 10, 2012
As nursing home care improves, some problems slow to mend
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-02-10/nursing-home-federal-ratings/53031094/1
More than 560 of the nation’s nursing homes have not budged for the past three years from a one-star federal government rating — the lowest on a five-star scale — even as most homes improved, according to a USA TODAY analysis of federal data.
High turnover affects home health care quality
NATIONAL, USA Today, February 15, 2012
This article gives an overview of the causes and effect of the 60-100% annual turnover rate of caregivers. The turnover affects seniors by causing them to face a multitude of caregivers, rather than the same person; employers must pay to constantly retrain employees; employees aren’t able to advance their careers.
Sen. Franken introduces legislation to protect Minnesota seniors from abuse – HomeTownSource.com
From: National Center on Elder Abuse Forum [mailto:ELDERABUSE@LIST.NIH.GOV] On Behalf Of Svare, Tristan
Sent: Thursday, February 09, 2012 12:52 PM
To: ELDERABUSE@LIST.NIH.GOV
Subject: [NCEAELDERABUSE] FW: Sen. Franken introduces legislation to protect Minnesota seniors from abuse – HomeTownSource.com
Sen. Franken introduces legislation to protect Minnesota seniors from abuse Washington, D.C. – Yesterday (Tuesday, Feb. 7), U.S. Sen. Al Franken
(D-Minn.) introduced the Elder Protection and Abuse Prevention Act, a bill that would protect Minnesota’s seniors by implementing a comprehensive network of elder abuse prevention and response measures.
He co-sponsored the bill along with Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), and Robert Casey (D-Pa.).
“Across the country, far too many seniors are being abused or exploited by the very people who should be looking after their well-being,” said Sen.
Franken. “This bill will address the tragedy of elder abuse – which is far too prevalent in Minnesota and across the country – by providing resources to protect seniors from abuse and help those who have already been abused.”
While child abuse and domestic violence screenings are well-integrated into the nation’s health and community services network, elder abuse screening requirements are noticeably absent in federally supported senior services.
The Elder Protection and Abuse Prevention Act seeks to fill that void by encouraging the development of a strong network of elder abuse screening and support programs to identify instances of elder abuse and stop them before they happen. In some states, strong mandatory reporting laws and penalties exist for crimes against seniors, but they are ineffective without screening and reporting standards throughout the country.
Specifically, the bill would:
* Authorize the National Adult Protective Services Resource Center – codifies the National Adult Protective Resources Center in the Administration on Aging, and expand both its guidance and responsibilities to states. This provision is based on Sen. Franken’s Home Care Consumer Bill of Rights Act, which he introduced in October.
* Require the development of best elder abuse screening practices – directs the National Adult Protective Resources Center to support states in the development of best practices to incorporate elder abuse screening into health and wellness services and requires the research center to study and disseminate this information to states regularly.
* Incorporate state prevention, assessment, and response to elder abuse – incorporates elder abuse prevention training, screening, and reporting protocol into all senior service access points that receive federal dollars under this bill as part of their state and area plans on aging. In 2009, there were 6 million instances of elder abuse reported nationwide, and only 23.5% of cases are reported due to a lack of screening, awareness, and prevention efforts. It is estimated that seniors lose a minimum of $2.9 billion each year to financial abuse and exploitation, and victims experience a mortality rate that is three times higher than those who are not victims of elder abuse.
Sen. Franken has long been an advocate for Minnesota’s seniors. In December, he introduced legislation that would expand direct care to older Americans, allowing many seniors to avoid costly hospitalization and receive higher quality, more affordable treatment.
New Federal Agency Focusing on Elder Financial Abuse
The new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has an Office of Financial Protection for Older Americans. According to the Office’s website, “Older Americans face many financial challenges as they age. They have opportunities to travel, explore new fields of work or hobbies, or spend time with family and friends. But often scam artists or bad advice take away these opportunities. The Office of Financial Protection for Older Americans is here to give seniors information and tools to navigate safely through financial challenges.”
The new director of the Office is Hubert “Skip” Humphrey, the former Attorney General of Minnesota. Skip and his staff have reached out to many in the elder abuse and aging communities, including NAPSA, to learn about the many forms of elder financial abuse and possible ways the new Bureau might effectively address this growing and very serious problem. For more information, visit this link
http://www.consumerfinance.gov/older-americans/
