Death is common in nursing homes. In fact, about 25% of the deaths in the US occur in nursing home facilities.
Some deaths are natural and unrelated to nursing home wrongdoing. However, many nursing home deaths are preventable, and fall under the nursing home wrongful death category.
The following are the most common causes of death in nursing home patients in the United States, whether preventable or due to nursing home negligence.
Natural Deaths in Nursing Homes
Given the advanced age of the nursing home population, elderly residents pass away in nursing homes across the country every day. This occurs frequently and is oftentimes unpreventable, even with the best nursing home care. Common natural causes of death listed on a death certificate may include:
- Failure to thrive
- Heart disease / cardiovascular issues
- Old age / advanced age
- Respiratory failure / pulmonary disease
- Kidney disease / renal failure
- Dementia / Alzheimer’s Disease
Concealing a Nursing Home Wrongful Death as a Natural Death
It is important to note that oftentimes, a nursing home is the last medical provider to treat the patient before they die. This means the nursing home’s records are oftentimes the key piece of evidence in determining the patient’s cause of death.
If a resident has a ‘red flag’ injury suggesting nursing home abuse, the facility may attempt to conceal it or minimize its importance. The nursing home may try to avert liability by making the patient’s death seem natural. This is similar to the fox guarding the henhouse.
For this reason, the Death Certificate may be unreliable as to what truly killed the nursing home resident.
Preventable Nursing Home Deaths
Unfortunately, old age is not the only common cause of death in nursing homes and long-term care facilities.
Nursing home corporations continue to increase their total number of beds while decreasing their overall staff in an attempt to maximize profits. This results in plummeting care quality. This means more residents get ignored, neglected, and suffer poor health outcomes.
The following are leading causes of wrongful death in nursing homes.
Falls and Fall-Related Nursing Home Deaths
Falls are a major risk for elderly individuals, and they can result in fractures, head injuries, or complications like immobility and infections, which can contribute to death. Nursing home residents are often frail and at high risk for these types of accidents.
Falls remain one of the most common problems in nursing homes, which have a responsibility to mitigate falls by enacting a variety of prevention measures. The majority of falls are preventable and are caused by issues within the facility such as loose carpet, poorly maintained or slippery floors, clutter, and the overuse of sedative medication. Falling down can lead to poor health outcomes and even death in older individuals for a variety of reasons, such as immune complications from broken bones or direct bleeding in the brain (a subdural hematoma) as a result of hitting one’s head during a fall.
Sepsis and Infection Deaths; Bed Sores
As mentioned previously, infections are a significant concern within nursing home facilities.
Sepsis, a life-threatening response to infection, is common in nursing homes. Sepsis is a body-wide infection of the blood that is often fatal as the blood pressure drops and vital organs are permanently and severely damaged.
Infections, especially urinary tract infections (UTIs), respiratory infections, and skin infections like pressure ulcers, can lead to sepsis if untreated.
Unfortunately, a common source of infections is bed sores, which develop as open sores on the skin that are easy targets for harmful bacteria. These preventable wounds can be deadly and can fester until they cause sepsis.
Similarly, urinary tract infections remain common in long-term care facilities. These often arise due to insufficient catheter care or bad practice, such as not replacing catheters as often as needed or reusing them. The urethra, bladder, and kidneys can all be impacted, leading to swelling, inflammation, and widespread infection, culminating in septic shock.
Choking Deaths
Additionally, choking deaths are far too common in long term care facilities. Not only is choking easily preventable, it is an awful way to die.
Inappropriate diets and a failure to supervise eating in at risk residents can result in a nursing home choking death. When a resident chokes to death in a facility, an investigation should be conducted immediately as to how this occurred.
Medication Mistakes and Overdosing
Many nursing home residents are on a regiment of prescription drugs. However, if these drugs are carelessly administered, either at wrong times or incorrect dosages, the results can be fatal.
Missed doses of medication, overdosing on a prescription, and administering a drug that was never prescribed to the patient are all clear cut examples of nursing home negligence. If the results are fatal, this is a completely preventable nursing home medication mistake wrongful death.
Medication errors in nursing homes unfortunately are a common cause of death in elderly patients.
Justice Is Available in Cases of Wrongful Death and Abuse in Nursing Homes
The quality of care in a nursing home will depend in large part on how many staff members are available to care for your loved one every hour of every day.
In understaffed facilities, routine care is often neglected because there are too few people to properly administer such healthcare. This means mistakes will occur.
These ‘mistakes’ amount to nursing home negligence. The failure to mitigate falls, not checking up on residents who are then found to have become caught in their bedrails, or not shifting residents’ body weight in bed and causing pressure ulcers are just a few examples.
If someone you love has passed away or been injured in a nursing home, the nursing home attorneys at Senior Justice Law Firm would be happy to help you understand whether negligence or abuse were involved. Reach out to schedule a free consultation to discuss what happened.
Call us today at 888-375-9998 or live chat with out office now for a completely free case consultation to learn more about your legal rights after a suspicious death in a nursing home.