New York Nursing Home Slip and Fall Injury

If you have recently placed a loved one inside a nursing home and are concerned about an injury that he or she may have sustained that could have been preventable, you are not alone. Unfortunately, slip and fall injuries are some of the leading types of accidents that affect elderly people.

You may have grounds for premises liability case, however, if the facility and the staff working inside the nursing home knew about reasonable risks or the increased risk factors that your loved one had but failed to do anything to minimize the risk of such an accident.

The elderly are exposed to particularly serious injuries in the event that they slip and fall. As any New York nursing home slip and fall injury lawyer can tell you, it could become catastrophic or fatal depending on the circumstances of the accident. A New York nursing home slip and fall injury attorney is a valuable person to have at your side as you navigate the legal system and fight for recovery of compensation. Falls, in fact, are the most common injuries across nursing homes in the United States. Many people are familiar with the fact that falls are common in nursing homes but the sad news is that many of these falls are completely preventable. There are simple steps staff members can take to minimize fall risk and to engage in regular maintenance that identifies as hazards and obstacles.

If someone you know has already fallen due to negligence in a nursing home, you need to consult with a nursing home slip and fall injury lawyer in New York immediately.

Research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that an average nursing home will report between 100 and 200 slip and fall incidents every single year. That means that as many as 75% of nursing home residents will sustain a slip and fall injury annually, which is twice the rate of falls for people who are living outside of nursing homes. The truth is that many patients can even fall more than once, sustaining catastrophic injuries each time. In fact, nursing home reports indicate that the average is 2.6 falls per person each year.

Approximately 20% of nursing home falls lead to catastrophic injuries, including those that may require hospitalization and follow-up care. Many falls are both predictable and preventable. A history of falling can enhance a person's risk likelihood of an accident significantly. If your loved one has a prior history of falling, then they are more likely to fall again. Residents who have significant cognitive problems like Alzheimer’s disease face a higher risk of falling. If a resident takes any medications that alter his or her mind such a psychotropic drugs or sedatives, they will face an increased risk of falling.

If the resident is looking for a way to leave the nursing home permanently, the risk of falls is also much higher. Comprehensive assessments of every new resident's functional capacity must be completed within 14 days of a resident's admission to the nursing home. This is referred to by the government as a minimum data set and helps to analyze whether or not a person is at increased risk of falling. If your loved one has recently entered a nursing home, you will want to see this document. Furthermore, it could prove important if they should have caught problems early on but failed to do so and your loved one slipped and fell as a result. Nursing homes also use another scale called a Morse Scale that assesses a resident in six different categories and the first one are risk factors that have to do with a history of falls.

One of the leading reasons that slip and fall injuries happen at nursing homes is because no one is watching the patient even though they should be. These accidents are completely preventable because appropriate staff members who are trained with how to identify problems and to avoid them can help to eliminate the risks of slip and fall injuries altogether.