Most people become less active as they age. They stop lifting weights and participating in organized sports. Eventually, even low-impact activities such as walking and gentle yoga become difficult or dangerous due to their physical limitations.
Older adults may spend quite a bit of their time in bed or in a favorite chair. Especially once they move to a nursing home, a sedentary lifestyle is likely. Most people understand that reduced physical activity and prolonged periods of lying down or sitting could lead to bedsores.
Also known as pressure ulcers or decubitus ulcers, bedsores are a well-known medical concern for older adults. When do family members need to consider bedsores a possible indicator of negligent nursing home care?
When they reach later stages
It may be all but impossible for nursing home professionals to prevent stage one bedsore development. Stage one bedsores can develop in as little as a few hours in locations that are subject to regular pressure. Stage one bedsores are red and inflamed, but they respond quickly to cushioning, rotation and other forms of alleviating the pressure on that location.
Stage two bedsores feature broken skin, which worsens pain and creates a risk of infection. When bedsores reach the third or fourth stages, they can cause severe pain, damage nerves and kill nearby tissue. The failure to identify early-stage bedsores and treat them effectively is potentially a warning sign of nursing home neglect.
When they become infected
Especially once bedsores reach the third or fourth stages, nursing home workers need to be proactive about keeping the area clean and dry. The failure to do so can lead to severe systemic infections that require antibiotic treatment or even hospitalization.
The failure to intervene promptly when a patient develops bedsores and to treat the affected area to limit infection risk could constitute professional negligence. Older adults can suffer major medical setbacks from the infections.
When families can show that other care professionals could have prevented bedsores, intervened before they worsened or better treated an infected sore, they may be able to credibly assert that the standard of care at a facility was unacceptable. Filing a successful nursing home negligence lawsuit can help cover increased medical expenses and long-term care costs. Older adults should not have to suffer unnecessarily when they rely on professional caregivers for support managing their daily affairs.