In a surprising report out of Connecticut, one nursing home has made the decision to purposely remove all the alarms from their facility. That means the alarms on patients’ beds, the alarms on wheelchairs and even the alarms on patients themselves have all been eliminated. Though this may seem to increase the risk of serious accidents occurring, quite the opposite has happened according to the director of nursing. Rather than compromise care, the number of injuries has actually fallen, and by quite a lot.

The director of nursing at the Connecticut facility first got the idea several years ago and debated making the move for a number of months. Once she decided to dive in, she found that the hardest problem to overcome was the staff. [Read more…]

Nursing home abuse happens in Mississippi just like it happens in the rest of the country. This is a sad and disheartening fact — physical abuse, sexual abuse and financial abuse happen right here in North Mississippi to our elderly people. There are some 16,000 Mississippians in our state’s skilled nursing facilities, and that number will increase exponentially as the Baby Boomers age. We should be doing everything we can to protect these victims of abuse, and punish those that are taking advantage of them. Instead, Mississippi lawmakers seem to be protecting the nursing home organizations and the insurance companies.