Law Firm Resources & News

A federal jury awarded $1.75 million last month to a woman who said her sister lost her dignity in the last days of her life because of unhygienic conditions and improper care at a Charleston, West Virginia nursing home. Tammy Rectenwald, 44, was in the late stages of multiple sclerosis and could no longer speak.…

Conditions at an East Peoria, Illinois nursing home changed dramatically for elderly residents when a number of younger residents with psychiatric problems and/or criminal histories were admitted to the East Peoria Gardens Healthcare Center. The Chicago Tribune reported the new residents wandered the hallways at night, shouting and pounding the walls with their heads and…

We have previously written about NCCNHR – the National Citizens’ Coalition for Nursing Home Reform (NCCNHR), formed because of public concern about substandard care in nursing homes. This tremendous advocacy organization has been busy this week testifying before the Senate Aging Committee on the need for increased staffing at all of America’s nursing homes. NCCNHR…

Four years ago, a 77 year-old female nursing home resident was sleeping in her room at the Southwood Nursing Center in Jacksonville, Florida, when she was sexually assaulted by an 83 year-old male resident. The nursing home resident offender had been arrested 58 times in his past and convicted twice of sex crimes. The victim’s…

Police arrested a Pennsylvania nursing home employee who now faces charges of reckless endangerment and nursing home neglect. The former employee, a certified nurses aide, is alleged to have covered up a 96 year-old woman’s fall at a nursing home. The CNA was supposed to be caring for the elderly woman when the patient fell.…

We get calls often “I live in Texas, my Mom is in a nursing home in Florida, but my sister knows your firm” “What are the laws in Texas?” Well, I am neither licensed in any state other than Va and West Va., nor am I able to answer questions on other states. A super…

Many people believe that Medicare will pay their bills for nursing home care, if needed. Not true! Medicare will only pay in certain limited situations (rehabilitation after surgery) and then for a very limited time period (often 100 days). Medicaid will step in and pay but only if you qualify – which means you have…

If it hasn’t happened to you, it probably has happened to someone you know. A patient goes into the hospital for an emergent or elective procedure and contracts an infection that ends up being far worse than the medical problem which sent them to the hospital in the first place. These infections are called “nosocomial”…

The Society for Vascular Surgery, representing the nation’s 2,400 vascular surgeons, is now recommending 3 separate screening tests for patients 55 years of age or older who have cardiovascular risk factors. The risk factors include high blood pressure, diabetes, smoking, high cholesterol, known cardio-vascular disease, or family history of abdominal aortic aneurysms. The first screening…

A new study shows that while prostate-specific antigen (PSA) measurement remains an important monitoring tool, it performs poorly in distinguishing those who will develop lethal prostate cancer from those at low or no risk of disease progression. The results are reported in the April 4 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, where…