CT Nursing Home Lawsuits Involve Lack of PT
There's an interesting story out of Connecticut from this weekend. It involves a nursing home facing lawsuits for neglecting two patients, both of whom died. In the first, part of the argument is that the client did not receive "medically necessary physical therapy," though no physical therapists are named in the lawsuit.
The story contends that the first client, a 76-year-old man who originally came to the nursing home after a fall in 2005, died of an infection in his legs. Prior to his death, the man refused physical therapy, yet would get up from his bed unattended. Facility staff allegedly took to restraining the patient in bed so he wouldn't get up and hurt himself. Here's an excerpt:
Kyle Wininger said her father didn't want to stay in bed, so he'd ring the bell for help. When it didn't come, he'd get up even though his muscles didn't work properly.
"So he would try to get out of bed and he would fall on the floor," she said. Staff clipped a wire to the front of his shirt that went off if he moved, she said.
"They didn't particularly care for my father," Kyle Wininger said. "He was loud and he was obnoxious and I'm sure there must have been someone there that he didn't care for, because if he didn't like you, he didn't like you."
Many of you have worked with a patient at some point or another who didn't want to do physical therapy or follow instructions, regardless of the setting you're in. How do you handle patients who refuse therapy or refuse to do it as instructed? What would you have done as the physical therapist in this man's case?