It is not uncommon for elderly nursing home residents to be in poor health or in need of medical assistance. In some of these situations, an emergency room visit may be essential for that patient. However, an emergency room visit may also lead to infection in the nursing home later on.
An article published by University of Pennsylvania's School of Medicine recently explored this phenomenon. According to the article, an ER visit may lead to 3x risk of respiratory and gastrointestinal infections for nursing home residents. Within the nursing home setting, the rate acute respiratory or GI infections was at 5% within a week of an emergency department visit as opposed to 2% when not the resident did not leave the long-term care facility. After accounting for other variables, residents at such homes were actually 3.9x more likely to acquire an infection following a trip to the emergency department. One researcher is also quoted as saying, "If they acquire an infection while in the emergency department, these residents may be the source of an outbreak upon return to their facility".
All in all, hospital visits from a nursing home lead to high-risk periods for all of the nursing home residents once the sick person returns. New nursing home residents transferred from hospitals may pose an even higher risk for an outbreak of illness within the facility. Applying this knowledge, if someone you know has been recently admitted into a nursing home from a hospital, has recently been to the hospital, or has friends in the nursing home that have just returned from the hospital, it will be crucial to monitor those people for any changing conditions or health issues. If you feel that your loved one needs more care than they are currently being given by the nursing home staff, you may need to discuss changes with the nursing home employees.
Attorney Doug Stoehr is a central Pennsylvania lawyer specializing in nursing home abuse and negligence. For more information on his practice, please visit his website.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Monday, January 30, 2012
Fall Risks and Antidepressants
There are many factors that influence how and at which times nursing home residents are more susceptible to injuries. In addition to understaffing, negligence, and abuse, falls are a very common source of injury in nursing home situations. Some conditions lead to an increased likelihood of injury due to falling. One of these conditions is the use of SSRIs by residents.
SSRIs, or selective seratonin reuptake inhibitors, are prescription medications commonly used to treat symptoms of depression and other anxiety disorders. Recent research has also shown that the use of SSRIs may be linked to increased risk of falls in nursing homes from residents that are taking the drug. A study performed in the Netherlands, taking data from over two years and 248 nursing home residents, resulted in some interesting findings. According to the study, a total of 683 falls were experienced by 61.5 percent% of the nursing home residents. This data, looked at a year's span, results in a fall incidence of 2.9 falls/person/year. 220 of these falls resulted in injury or death. The investigators also found that the risk of having a fall resulting in injury was three times higher for residents taking SSRIs than for those who didn't take them. This particular statistic was found for both genders of a wide variety of ages. This fall-related risk of injury increased further when the residents were also given sedatives, such as sleeping pills.
It is important to monitor your loved one's medication, including type and dosage, in order to help minimize the risk of injury due to falls. If your loved one has recently fallen in a nursing home setting and is now seriously injured, and if you feel that the nursing home has neglected your loved one, it may be time to seek legal assistance. Attorney Doug Stoehr is a personal injury attorney specializing in nursing home abuse and negligence. For more information on him and his firm, please visit our website or call us at (814) 946-4100.
SSRIs, or selective seratonin reuptake inhibitors, are prescription medications commonly used to treat symptoms of depression and other anxiety disorders. Recent research has also shown that the use of SSRIs may be linked to increased risk of falls in nursing homes from residents that are taking the drug. A study performed in the Netherlands, taking data from over two years and 248 nursing home residents, resulted in some interesting findings. According to the study, a total of 683 falls were experienced by 61.5 percent% of the nursing home residents. This data, looked at a year's span, results in a fall incidence of 2.9 falls/person/year. 220 of these falls resulted in injury or death. The investigators also found that the risk of having a fall resulting in injury was three times higher for residents taking SSRIs than for those who didn't take them. This particular statistic was found for both genders of a wide variety of ages. This fall-related risk of injury increased further when the residents were also given sedatives, such as sleeping pills.
It is important to monitor your loved one's medication, including type and dosage, in order to help minimize the risk of injury due to falls. If your loved one has recently fallen in a nursing home setting and is now seriously injured, and if you feel that the nursing home has neglected your loved one, it may be time to seek legal assistance. Attorney Doug Stoehr is a personal injury attorney specializing in nursing home abuse and negligence. For more information on him and his firm, please visit our website or call us at (814) 946-4100.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Nursing Home Falls and Injuries
Falls in nursing homes are somewhat common occurrences and can lead to serious injury or even death. Fall prevention practices and guidelines are not always clearly defined or effective. Unfortunately, some residents labeled as fall risks fail to be properly attended to or given the extra help that they need to complete certain activities.
A study by Nyrop, Zimmerman, and Sloane (2011) studied the phenomenon of nursing-home related falls and how prevention guidelines could address those fall risk patients. In their study, titled “Physician Perspective on Fall Prevention and Monitoring in Assisted Living: A Pilot Study”, they offered a wealth of information and background knowledge on falls in nursing homes.
According to the study, out of the 1.5 million Americans in nursing homes, an average of 43% of residents will fall every year; those numbers can actually go as high as 75% of residents in a given home. Additionally, 10-25% of those falls lead to serious injury, such as bone fractures. Nursing homes residents all together account for about 20% of fall-related deaths in people over 65. The American Association of Medical Directors is one of a few organizations that have created fall prevention guidelines used by nursing homes. However, these guidelines are general for all long-term care facilities and not address nursing homes in particular.
If your loved one has recently fallen in a nursing home setting and is now seriously injured, and if you feel that the nursing home has neglected your loved one, it may be time to seek legal assistance. Attorney Doug Stoehr is a personal injury attorney specializing in nursing home abuse and negligence. For more information on him and his firm, please visit our website or call us at (814) 946-4100.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Nursing Home High-Risk Times
When an elderly person is admitted to a nursing home, there are several periods of time that are higher-risk for injury than other periods. This phenomenon has been studied and documented by numerous researchers. One study by Doupe et. al. (2011) titled "Nursing Home Adverse Events: Further Insight to Highest Risk Periods" talked about some of these situations. For example, some of the highest-risk periods are:
-New residents account for a disproportionately high percentage of nonhip fractures and bedsores
-Hospitalized falls, hip fractures, and respiratory infections are most common immediately before resident death
-Skin ulcers are most likely for new nursing home residents coming from a hospital; this is independent of mobility
All in all, transition periods, either just being admitted to a nursing home or in the late stages of life immediately preceding death, are the high-risk periods for nursing home residents. New nursing home residents transferred from hospitals pose an even higher risk for some conditions. Applying this knowledge, if someone you know has been recently admitted into a nursing home, the first three months are critical to monitor for any changing conditions or health issues. If you feel that your loved one needs more care than they are currently being given by the nursing home staff, you may need to discuss changes in your relative's individualized care plan.
Attorney Doug Stoehr is a central Pennsylvania lawyer specializing in nursing home abuse and negligence. For more information on his practice, please visit his website.
-New residents account for a disproportionately high percentage of nonhip fractures and bedsores
-Hospitalized falls, hip fractures, and respiratory infections are most common immediately before resident death
-Skin ulcers are most likely for new nursing home residents coming from a hospital; this is independent of mobility
All in all, transition periods, either just being admitted to a nursing home or in the late stages of life immediately preceding death, are the high-risk periods for nursing home residents. New nursing home residents transferred from hospitals pose an even higher risk for some conditions. Applying this knowledge, if someone you know has been recently admitted into a nursing home, the first three months are critical to monitor for any changing conditions or health issues. If you feel that your loved one needs more care than they are currently being given by the nursing home staff, you may need to discuss changes in your relative's individualized care plan.
Attorney Doug Stoehr is a central Pennsylvania lawyer specializing in nursing home abuse and negligence. For more information on his practice, please visit his website.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
The Future of Nursing Home Studies
Over the summer, the Journal of American Medical Directors Association published an interesting and insightful article on the future of nursing home research and practice. Within this journal, many topics relevant to nursing home research and practices are discussed, as well as issued targeted directly at the elderly population.
According to the journal article, entitled "A Research Agenda For Nursing Homes", the authors state that "
According to the journal article, entitled "A Research Agenda For Nursing Homes", the authors state that "
In the past several decades, the fields of geriatrics and gerontology have focused on creating, organizing, and coordinating geriatrics facilities, and little attention has been given to research that would improve clinical practice…because most nursing home residents suffer from dementia, clinical research on dementia is needed to validate new approaches to deal with the most significant problems encountered by nursing homes that care for those with severe dementia, including aggressive behaviors, problematic vocalizations, emergency hospitalizations, the need for physical restraints, anorexia, and end-of-life issues."
This move to more applied and forward-thinking research will be helpful in allowing nursing homes to realize how to care for and better serve their patients. With this in mind, nursing homes may be able to modify their practices and staffing procedures to decrease their incidents of negligence, abuse, and under/inefficient staffing. Attorney Doug Stoehr is a central Pennsylvania lawyer specializing in nursing home abuse and negligence. For more information on his practice, please visit our website.
Friday, January 20, 2012
Sleep and Chronic Pain
As discussed time and time again in this blog, chronic pain and lack of sleep often go together. Pain reduces your ability to fall asleep and stay asleep, and the resulting fatigue often leads to more intense and long-lasting pain. It is a vicious cycle that is difficult to break.
An article on CNN Health also discussed this phenomenon. According to the article, "Patients with any pain syndrome often come in complaining of fatigue or tiredness. Their bodies have trouble falling and staying asleep. Sleep and pain are both ultimately controlled by the central nervous system. Poor sleep and pain form a vicious cycle - uncontrolled pain makes sleep difficult (if not impossible) and, in turn, the resulting poor sleep makes it more difficult to adequately control the pain." Additionally, chronic pain sufferers spend more time in the light stages of sleep and therefore do not reach the deeper, more refreshing stages of REM sleep. They also tend to have abnormal EEGs during sleep, called "alpha intrusion". Although the cause of this is unknown, it is often linked to disorders that involve sleep and/or chronic pain.
Chronic pain is a serious and life-altering diagnosis. If you have been having trouble sleeping and have also had consistent pain lasting over six months, it might be time to consult with a doctor. If this pain was caused by an accident due to the fault of another, it may also be time to consult with an attorney. If you would like more information about this page or central Pennsylvania attorney Doug Stoehr's areas of practice, contact our Altoona, Pennsylvania, law firm by calling 814-946-4100.
An article on CNN Health also discussed this phenomenon. According to the article, "Patients with any pain syndrome often come in complaining of fatigue or tiredness. Their bodies have trouble falling and staying asleep. Sleep and pain are both ultimately controlled by the central nervous system. Poor sleep and pain form a vicious cycle - uncontrolled pain makes sleep difficult (if not impossible) and, in turn, the resulting poor sleep makes it more difficult to adequately control the pain." Additionally, chronic pain sufferers spend more time in the light stages of sleep and therefore do not reach the deeper, more refreshing stages of REM sleep. They also tend to have abnormal EEGs during sleep, called "alpha intrusion". Although the cause of this is unknown, it is often linked to disorders that involve sleep and/or chronic pain.
Chronic pain is a serious and life-altering diagnosis. If you have been having trouble sleeping and have also had consistent pain lasting over six months, it might be time to consult with a doctor. If this pain was caused by an accident due to the fault of another, it may also be time to consult with an attorney. If you would like more information about this page or central Pennsylvania attorney Doug Stoehr's areas of practice, contact our Altoona, Pennsylvania, law firm by calling 814-946-4100.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Psychological Therapy for Chronic Pain
Chronic pain sufferers sometimes cannot find relief with their existing drug and physical therapy/exercise routine. Instead of feeling relief, patients often feel over-medicated and/or sedated by their drug use. Since this lack of relief is a relatively common occurrence, the disease is gaining more press and some patients are finding relief through other publicized mediums. One of these alternative pathways is through a psychological approach of cognitive-behavioral therapy. Cognitive-behavioral therapy, or CBT, is a type of therapy that allows patients to reflect on how you think about and manage your pain mentally. From that reflection, you then reconstruct your thinking and modify your behavior to reduce stress, manage anxiety, and improve quality and duration of sleep (lack of sleep is extremely common in sufferers of chronic pain).
CBT has been shown in recent studies to be more effective than standard care in managing pain. One study compared patients who exercised, patients who exercised and used CBT, and patients who only used CBT. The CBT and CBT/exercise groups reported the highest improvement in their well-being (37% and 33%, respectively). This therapy is also effective because it is short in duration, lasting only 8-10 sessions, and attacks the cognitive aspects of pain from the angles of behavioral activation, lifestyle change, and cognitive restructuring. These aspects aim to improve the occurrence of fun and rewarding activities, identifying and eliminating negative thoughts, and improving diet and exercise habits.
CBT could be a great complement to a chronic pain sufferer's existing pain management regimen if done properly and with commitment. If you are interested in seeking CBT therapy, you might want to consult with your pain management physician.
CBT has been shown in recent studies to be more effective than standard care in managing pain. One study compared patients who exercised, patients who exercised and used CBT, and patients who only used CBT. The CBT and CBT/exercise groups reported the highest improvement in their well-being (37% and 33%, respectively). This therapy is also effective because it is short in duration, lasting only 8-10 sessions, and attacks the cognitive aspects of pain from the angles of behavioral activation, lifestyle change, and cognitive restructuring. These aspects aim to improve the occurrence of fun and rewarding activities, identifying and eliminating negative thoughts, and improving diet and exercise habits.
CBT could be a great complement to a chronic pain sufferer's existing pain management regimen if done properly and with commitment. If you are interested in seeking CBT therapy, you might want to consult with your pain management physician.
If you would like more information about this page or central Pennsylvania attorney Doug Stoehr's areas of practice, contact our Altoona, Pennsylvania, law firm by calling 814-946-4100.
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