One of the most common signs of nursing home neglect is bedsores or pressure ulcers on the patient’s skin. These sores are caused by sustained pressure on areas of the body that reduces or blocks blood flow and develop when patients aren’t moved frequently enough.
In this blog, we go into detail about the four stages of bedsores and what you can do to protect your elderly loved one from nursing home neglect.
Understanding How Bedsores Progress
Without treatment and pressure relief, ulcers and bedsores will continue to progress until they cause critical tissue damage. Knowing how pressure ulcers develop and how to stage them can help you better understand the severity of your loved one’s injuries and to what degree they were mistreated.
Stage 1
Stage 1 is the most mild presentation of bedsores. In this stage, the skin may be red or discolored around the affected area. It will not turn white or lose color if you press on it and there will be no breaks or tears in the skin. It will usually feel warmer than the skin around it.
Stage 2
In Stage 2, pressure ulcers have progressed to an open wound. The top layer of skin has worn away and may look like a sore, a scrape, or a broken blister. These are extremely painful for the patient.
Stage 3
If a pressure ulcer is in stage 3, it has reached into the deeper layers of skin and fat but has not yet damaged the patient’s muscle or bone tissue.
Stage 4
A stage 4 bedsore means the skin has ulcerated completely away and the injury has started to reach muscle, tendons, or bone. At this point, patients are at risk of developing a bone infection.
Unstageable
Unstageable pressure injuries are those that are too difficult to stage due to the condition of the wound. They may be covered with necrotic tissue and the base of the wound cannot be seen well enough to assess its progression.
Deep Tissue
Sometimes, patients get pressure injuries that do not break the skin but cause damage to tissue underneath the surface. For example, this might look like a bruise or blood blister.
Complications of Bedsores
The longer bedsores are allowed to progress without treatment, the higher the patient’s risk of serious complications becomes. This includes serious skin infections that can reach the blood and result in sepsis, which is a life-threatening condition that requires hospitalization and intensive treatment to reverse.
Protecting Your Loved One In a Nursing Home
Don’t wait until your loved one is showing signs of pressure injuries to move into action.Take these steps to protect them now:
- Visit your loved one often and stay involved in their care. Patients in nursing homes are less likely to be neglected when staff members know they get frequent visitors.
- Make sure your family member gets moved frequently enough. Facility staff should be helping your loved one get around the nursing home so they engage in social and enrichment activities. If your loved one is bed bound, staff should be turning them and adjusting their position frequently to prevent too much pressure on a single part of the body.
- Assess your loved one for pressure sores in common areas frequently. Look at your family member’s heels, their buttocks and lower back, and shoulders for signs of injury or redness.
- Document your family member’s condition. Keep good records of your loved one’s condition from day to day, even if it’s just a few notes that you jot down on your way out the door. This information will become invaluable if you pursue a case against the nursing home, since memories can get cloudy over time.
Reach Out to a Qualified Cleveland Nursing Home Abuse Lawyer Now
Your elderly family member deserves the proper supervision and care during their stay in a nursing home. If you suspect they are being neglected or abused by facility staff, it’s important to take action right away.
Contact us today by dialing (440) 333-3800 to learn more about your right to fight for your loved one in a nursing home or complete our quick online form and we’ll be in touch as soon as possible.