Hello all, after respiratory failure Dec. 11, 2017, my 70 year old mom has been in and out of the hospital. Recently, she was admitted to an extended care facility to work on rehab. She entered the extended care facility with two minor sores on her butt (barely stage 1 and very small). After being there for nearly a month, she was discharged to a skilled nursing facility three days ago. The next day after discharge that new facility sent her to the ER (in a different town). There, they discovered a large stage 3 bedsore. We were devastated and furious! A couple of weeks ago we were told that the minor sores were gone and nothing further was said about bedsores. How is it that a patient is worse off for having been in the care of the extended care facility? Is this common? What can we do? Thank you. Labeled this question as Elder Abuse because I was not sure which label was most appropriate.
It *could* be the result of neglect, but it could also be the result of a good many other things for which no facility could necessarily be to blame. For example - your mother might have refused assistance with care or with mobility; she might have a health condition that makes her skin excessively liable to breaking down; she might have been unaware of the extent of the sore and brushed off attempts to check it - all sorts of things.
I hope this doesn't sound like blaming the victim, that's not what I mean at all. All I'm pointing out is that once pressure sores get under way they can become monsters in next to no time - it isn't only a question of facility staff being reasonably conscientious.
I should note that prior to mom's admittance to the extended care facility, she suffered a herniated disk in her lumbar area. That set her PT back a bit so she was struggling with mobility while in that facility. To make matters worse they would give her two Tylenol 3s when she would ask for pain meds. These meds had a sedative-like effect on her. I don't fault that center for that as the were giving her the 2 Tylenols because they didn't have tylenol 4 on hand (her pain prescription was for tylenol 4). Anyway, the point here is that she was not mobile with them. Yet, I don't quite understand why they didn't turn her as often as they should have. And if mom refused the turnings, why wouldn't they tell us that the sore was getting worse. Again, no one said a thing to us about the sore; thus the shock at the skilled nursing facility.
Just trying to understand why this would happen. This being how could they let the bed sore get so bad and why wouldn't they tell us. I wonder if they even checked in the last week or so.