When an elderly loved one’s care needs begin to exceed the family’s ability, and they require 24-hour care, the family carefully chooses the best possible nursing home within their budget. Every family has the right to expect a nursing home to keep its residents safe, provide skilled nursing care, and respect their human dignity.
Unfortunately, chronic understaffing, high staff turnover rates, and inexperienced caregivers result in neglect and abuse in nursing homes far more often than we’d like. One of the most deadly outcomes of nursing home neglect is aspiration death.
If this happens, an experienced Arizona nursing home abuse lawyer can help families pursue accountability and compensation for a preventable loss.
Contact Knapp & Roberts
Death From Aspiration In a Nursing Home
Understanding Aspiration In Elderly Nursing Home Residents
Death from aspiration is most common in the elderly population or those over age 72. A medical research study of 57 victims of aspiration death shows that it is also more common in males than female elderly residents.
Aspiration occurs when food or liquid travels into a person’s airway rather than their esophagus. Aspiration death in nursing homes occurs in two ways:
- Airway blockage causes an immediate lack of oxygen to the brain and results in death
- Foreign liquid or food particles inhaled into the lungs cause aspiration pneumonia, which is a bacterial infection in the lungs that may become fatal
Aspiration pneumonia in the elderly is more likely to lead to sepsis and death when left untreated.
Why Are Elderly Nursing Home Patients at High Risk for Aspiration Death?
An important aspect of the nursing home staff’s duty of care toward residents is regularly assessing each resident’s ability to swallow and then adjusting their diet accordingly. Difficulty swallowing (dysphagia) is common among the elderly due to medical problems such as strokes and dementia, and as a side effect of many prescription medications. Tragically, the following types of nursing home negligence sometimes occur and cause aspiration deaths:
- Improper feeding methods, such as giving a tube-fed resident whole food or feeding a resident who is lying down rather than seated upright
- Giving a resident on a soft-food diet foods that are tough, chunky, or require chewing
- Rushing residents through meals
- Insufficient monitoring after meals
- Failing to make regular reassessments of a resident’s swallowing ability
- Failing to notice signs of distress and provide emergency assistance for a choking resident
- Neglecting to obtain a medical examination for a patient with a persistent cough
When an elderly resident is flagged as high risk, they require not only a special diet but also supervision while eating and monitoring for a period after completing meals.
Understanding Duty of Care and Liability for Nursing Homes
Nursing homes have a legal duty of care to their residents, requiring them to provide proper care, nutrition, and supervision, especially during meals when residents face choking hazards.
The nursing home may be held liable for wrongful death damages paid to the closest surviving family member if a loved one died due to aspiration while under the care of nursing home staff. A successful claim requires evidence showing the following:
- The nursing home owed a duty of care to the elderly person because they were a resident in the facility
- They breached this duty of care through negligence
- The breach of duty caused the fatal injury
- The elderly person’s family suffered damages from the death
Recoverable damages in aspiration death claims against nursing homes may recover compensation for medical expenses, funeral and burial costs, a family member’s lost earnings, compensation for the elderly resident’s pain and suffering, and compensation for the family’s emotional grief and anguish.
Although the legal process cannot erase the harm or bring a deceased loved one back, it helps provide family members with a sense of justice and closure.