Nursing Home Restraints - Is That Abuse?

Posted on April 22, 2009 by Paula Strand

Placing your loved ones in a nursing home or eldercare facility can be an incredibly difficult decision for anyone to make. Nobody relishes the idea of surrendering the care of your parents or grandparents to a third party, but there aren’t many people who can handle the normal stresses of everyday life as well as the care that an elderly or ill relative might need. The decision to place someone in a nursing home is often one that is made reluctantly.

But the unfortunate truth about nursing homes is that while the majority of them are well run and staffed with conscientious and dedicated professionals, there are still a number of them that are overcrowded and understaffed, and much of the staff that is working has little or no background in eldercare, or even medicine.

The end result of a state of affairs like this could be eldercare abuse.

Quite often, disturbing cases come to light. You read about patients in these facilities being beaten or even sexually abused. Or you read about patients dying of malnutrition or dehydration due to shameful neglect. These are not rare occurrences, and in fact they happen with shocking regularity.

 

 

A lack of training and, even worse, a lack of empathy in the employees can be disastrous, especially considering that many of the patients in your average nursing home or eldercare facility rely on the staff for practically every aspect of their care. They rely on staff to eat and drink, to get their medicine on time, to get dressed, or to get any exercise. When these trusts are neglected or abused, that is an unconscionable breach of that trust.

One aspect of elder care that is often misused is the use of restraints. Keeping someone tied to a bed or stretcher is unfortunately something that should be done for the safety of that patient, especially if the patient is suffering from dementia. But there have been some cases recently of restraints being used for punitive reasons rather than any other practical ones.

Patients at nursing home are often strapped in with belts, vest restraints (straitjackets,) or cuffs. When they are used properly, they can actually protect patients with mental or physical illness from falling and injuring themselves. Use for any other reasons is a violation of federal law. According to Section 1369r of Title 42 of the U.S. Code:

“Restraints may only be imposed--

                    (I) to ensure the physical safety of the resident or other residents, and

                    (II) only upon the written order of a physician that specifies the duration and circumstances under which the restraints are to be used (except in emergency circumstances specified by the Secretary until such an order could reasonably be obtained).”

What this means is that nursing home staff cannot strap someone down on their bed if they have been “bad” or “difficult.” Aside from the utterly degrading aspects of this practice, there are also real physical damages that can happen to the victim. Use of restraints can cause at the least bruising and pressure sores and at the worst strangulation and death.

These dangers are widely known to the entire medical and nursing home community, so claiming ignorance is not an excuse. As far back as 1992, a report by Drs. Steven Miles and Patrick Irvine was published by the Gerontological Society of America, in which it was stated:

“The most effective way to prevent restraints from causing deaths is to dramatically decrease their use.”

Despite years of warnings and data, the use of restraints in nursing homes is rampant, and still happens everywhere. A recent study in Canada showed that almost one-third of nursing home residents in the entire country have been restrained, and a recent study by the AARP in Tennessee recently showed that the state performed poorly in terms of restraint use. And these are just a few of the examples.

This isn’t the way nursing homes are supposed to work.

If you need a lawyer to review your nursing home abuse or elder abuse situation, please contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free nursing home abuse legal consultation.
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