Patient Falls
Falls in nursing homes can cause devastating injuries. Facilities have a duty to assess risks and prevent falls.
Free Case ReviewFalls are the leading cause of injury among nursing home residents. For elderly individuals, a fall can result in hip fractures, head injuries, broken bones, and other complications that significantly accelerate physical decline and can be fatal. Nursing homes have a legal duty to assess each resident’s fall risk and implement appropriate prevention measures.
At Maples, Connick & Brendel, we represent residents and families when nursing homes fail to prevent foreseeable falls.
Why Falls Happen in Nursing Homes
Falls in nursing home settings are frequently preventable. Common contributing factors include failure to assess the resident’s fall risk upon admission and during care plan reviews, inadequate staffing leading to delayed assistance with mobility, failure to provide appropriate assistive devices such as walkers or wheelchairs, wet or slippery floors that are not promptly cleaned or marked, poor lighting in hallways, rooms, and bathrooms, improper bed heights and lack of bed rails when appropriate, failure to assist residents with medications that cause dizziness or unsteadiness, and leaving residents unattended during transfers, toileting, or bathing.
Injuries from Nursing Home Falls
Falls can cause devastating injuries in elderly residents, including hip fractures, which often require surgery and carry high mortality rates in elderly patients. Traumatic brain injuries from striking the head on floors or furniture. Broken wrists, arms, and shoulders from bracing against the fall. Spinal injuries. Lacerations requiring stitches or surgical repair. Internal bleeding.
For residents with osteoporosis or other bone-density conditions, even a relatively minor fall can cause serious fractures.
Facility Obligations
Federal and state regulations require nursing homes to assess each resident’s fall risk, develop individualized care plans addressing identified risks, implement fall prevention interventions, monitor and update care plans as the resident’s condition changes, and investigate and document all falls to prevent recurrence.
When a facility fails to meet these obligations and a resident is injured, the facility can be held liable for negligence.
Repeated Falls
A single fall may or may not indicate negligence. But when a resident falls repeatedly, and the facility fails to reassess risk factors and adjust the care plan, it demonstrates a pattern of neglect that strengthens a legal claim. We obtain fall logs and incident reports to identify these patterns.
If your loved one has been injured in a nursing home fall, contact us for a free consultation.
Frequently Asked Questions
It depends on the circumstances. If the facility failed to assess fall risk, failed to implement prevention measures, or created an unsafe environment that contributed to the fall, there may be a valid claim even after a single incident. We can review the details and advise you.
Ensure they receive immediate medical attention. Request a copy of the incident report from the facility. Document any injuries with photographs. Ask what fall prevention measures were in place and whether the care plan will be updated. Contact an attorney to discuss whether the fall may have been preventable.
Facilities sometimes argue that the resident contributed to their own fall by attempting to move independently against instructions. However, the facility still has a duty to anticipate and plan for such behavior, especially in residents with cognitive impairments. A thorough investigation can determine whether the facility met its obligations.