Every day millions of nursing home patients face abuse because many nursing home put profits over patients. As a result, many nursing homes are understaffed and have overworked, underpaid and unqualified employees. In particular, many nursing home employees are not trained to properly care for and treat bed sores due to incontinence, poor nutrition, and immobility. Many goverment agencies and organizations, including the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, have studied and evaluated ways to better train employees at nursing homes and other assisted living facilities to help prevent bed sores and pressure ulcer, as well as many other types of nursing home abuse faced by millions of patients every day. Although, the first concern should be patient care, unfortunately money usually comes before the care of a patient. Clearly, with proper training and care of nursing home employees, much of the abuse we see can easily be prevented.
For example, nursing home employees should be trained to properly asses patients with immobility problems such as those in a wheelchair or those who are bed bound. The evaluation of these patients should include plans for:
·a special diet plan
·Being repositioned or turned at night to reduce or prevent bed sores.
·A daily exercise routine
·Regular skin and hygiene evaluations
Regular bathing and cleansing of bed bound or wheelchair bound individuals can also help reduce or prevent bed sores and other types of abuse. Problems should be noted and written down on a weekly or monthly report. If a nursing home patient develops a malnutrition problem the first step that needs to taken is an evaluation of the food they have been eating and careful evaluation after adding more calories and nutrients.
Many times, the employees want training, but can not afford to do so. Clearly, nursing homes and assisted living facilities should provide training classes to nursing home caregivers at little or no cost so that they can learn the proper ways to reposition, transfer and help a bed bound or wheelchair bound patient to help prevent bed sores or pressure ulcers.
Below are simple and general guidelines and training tips that can help to prevent nursing home abuse for millions of patients every day. Patients and their care should be priority number one; if not, patients need to have nursing home lawyer, someone fighting for their rights to proper medical care and abuse prevention.
If you feel that you or your loved ones rights have not been respected or you have been a victim of nursing home abuse, please contact a nursing home abuse attorney right away and let a nursing home lawyer help you fight for your rights and your loved ones.
To read additional information about the guidelines provided by the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research and the National Libary of Medicine, you may visit the following website:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/bv.fcgi?rid=hstat2.chapter.4409