Chicago Nursing Home Bed Sores Attorneys

Can Someone Die From a Bed Sore?

It’s certainly possible for a person to die from a pressure ulcer. The stage four bedsore life expectancy isn’t bright. This generally happens when an untreated pressure ulcer reaches stage three or stage four because the infection is incredibly common during these stages. In fact, according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), pressure ulcers cause more than 60,000 deaths every year in the United States. Sometimes, deaths caused by pressure ulcers can fall under the umbrella of wrongful death if:

• Someone should have prevented the bed sore
• Someone could have treated the bed sore at stage one or two
• There is substantial proof that the cause of death was a severe pressure sore

Treating Pressure Sores

The best way to treat developing bedsores in an assisted living facility or hospital is to relieve pressure, which supports healthy blood flow. Nurses in assisted living facilities generally achieve this by helping bedbound patients change positions every few hours or propping up affected body parts on foam pads. Other ways to treat developing pressure sores are listed below.

• Keep the Skin Clean: If someone develops a bedsore, it’s crucial to clean the wound and the surrounding skin to prevent infection. Nurses may do this with water and mild soap. For open wounds, nurses may use saline solution in between dressings.
• Use Dressings: This is especially important for protecting open wounds and keeping them clean. The best dressings for pressure ulcers are antimicrobial or hydrocolloid.
• Skin Care With Topical Creams: Nurses may use antibacterial creams to prevent infection while the sores heal.
• Removing Dead Tissue is important to aid in the healing process. A doctor may remove dead tissue with surgical tools or a water jet.
• Change the Bedding: Mattresses made of static foam can prevent hospital-acquired pressure ulcers by promoting proper blood circulation. Talk to a doctor about which kind of mattress they recommend for you or your loved one.
• Take Antibiotics: Antibiotics are the best way to treat infections of any kind.
• Address Poor Nutrition: A healthy, balanced diet won’t solve or prevent pressure ulcers on its own. However, ensuring that chronically ill or elderly patients consume essential nutrients every day can improve the body’s response to healing wounds and fighting infection. 

Our Chicago medical malpractice attorneys are well-versed in antibiotic stewardship for nursing homes. If your loved one developed bed sores as a result of this medical negligence, our Chicago nursing home infections lawyer can help.

Preventing Pressure Ulcers

Pressure ulcer prevention and treatment go hand in hand for bedbound people in living facilities. Some of the aforementioned treatments are also prevention methods. To prevent a pressure-induced injury, nurses and nursing homes must:

• Change their patient’s positions every two to three hours
• Inspect their patient’s skin every day
• Maintain proper skincare by cleaning it and keeping it dry
• Enforce proper nutrition for all patients
• Prohibit smoking for all patients
• Encouraging regular exercise, even for bedbound patients, to improve blood flow

Malnutrition in Chicago nursing homes has become a major concern lately. Don’t assume that your loved one is being properly fed and hydrated.

How Common are Bed Sores in Nursing Homes?

1 in 10 patients in assisted living facilities develop bedsores. The CDC also determined that stage two ulcers were the most common and that 35% of elderly people with stage two (or more severe) needed special treatment from a wound care team.  

More recent research from the ACP in 2015 says that 3 million Americans suffer from pressure injuries every year, and those who are immobile are the most at risk. The complications of immobility in nursing homes cannot be overstated.

Why Should I Pursue Legal Action for a Pressure Injury?

Many families of seniors file lawsuits for bed sores with our Chicago elder abuse lawyers because they can be a symptom of elder abuse. Medical facilities and nursing homes are required to provide optimum care for their patients. This means that one of their main priorities, especially for senior patients and bedbound patients, is to prevent bedsores. In many cases, a pressure ulcer lawsuit is based on the legal theory of negligence.

In fact, stage three and four pressure ulcers are included on a list of “never events” from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Basically, this means that while stage one and stage two pressure ulcers aren’t always preventable, stage three and stage four pressure ulcers are certainly preventable and should never happen. Therefore, Medicaid will not pay for the medical bills associated with a severe pressure injury. 

Social services cannot force an elderly person into a retirement home or assisted living facility. Your family or loved one is paying for negligent care each month. 

How to Win a Pressure Ulcer Lawsuit

If your loved one in a nursing home has suffered multiple stage three and stage four decubitus ulcers, your case will likely be worth more than if your loved one suffered from multiple stage one or stage two ulcers. The first step in potentially winning a pressure-sore lawsuit is to hire experienced elder abuse lawyers at Curcio & Casciato. We have decades of combined experience in fighting against all types of abuse in nursing homes. 

Proving Negligence

The next step in potentially winning a pressure sore lawsuit is to prove the elements of negligence, but only if you believe that is the direct cause of your loved one’s pressure ulcers. Negligence is the failure to take appropriate care of someone or something, and the most successful negligence lawsuits prove the four d’s of negligence:

• Duty of Care: The nursing home or the nurse/doctor in charge owed all of their patients a specific duty of care. In other words, the facility or the nurse/doctor must take proper care of all of their patients.
• Violating Duty of Care: The nursing home or the nurse/doctor in charge of your loved one failed to properly prevent a pressure-induced injury. Additionally, once the facility or nurse/doctor noticed their patient developing bedsores, they didn’t take care of it before it progressed into a stage three or four pressure ulcer.
• Causation: The elderly person suffered severe pain, injury, infection, nerve damage, or death because of their pressure sores, which directly resulted from a violated duty of care.
• Damages: Compensation from the nursing home, nurse, or doctor would partially or totally cover the cost of extensive bed sore treatment.

Chicago bed sore lawyers at Curcio Law can certainly help you gather enough evidence to prove these elements of negligence.

Average Bed Sore Lawsuit Compensation Amounts