Chicago Injury Lawyer Blog

A Cleveland woman who worked as a nursing assistant at a nursing home has been sentenced to more than 10 years in prison for abusing an Alzheimer’s patient.

The abuse was captured by the patient’s son through a video camera hidden in an air purifier. The video showed the nursing assistant, “roughly transferring [the patient] to a wheelchair and tossing her on a bed.”

As a Chicago area attorney with extensive nursing home experience, I feel that unfortunate events like this are far too prevalent and demonstrate the pressing need for greater supervision of nursing home employees. Nursing homes must implement improved systems of employee surveillance to protect their vulnerable residents and immediately put a stop to abuse when it occurs.

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As a Chicago area attorney with extensive nursing home experience, I too am discouraged by the latest disappointment in Alzheimer’s research. Although omega-3 fatty acid pills were thought to promote memory, researchers are reporting the disappointing news that the pills did not “slow mental and physical decline in older patients with mild or moderate Alzheimer’s disease. (L. Tanner, Chicago AP, 11/2).

Those results are the result of a “multimillion-dollar government-funded study released Tuesday in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association.” Laurie Ryan, the president of Alzheimer’s studies at the National Institute on Aging calls the results discouraging, but notes that “the institute is spending millions of dollars on research into other possible treatments. Those include lifestyle changes, drugs and biomarkers that might lead to more targeted drug treatment.”

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