North Carolina Nursing Home Abuse Attorneys

North Carolina Nursing Home Abuse and the Use of Restraints

The Raleigh nursing home abuse attorneys at Allen L. Broughton, P.C. want to raise awareness about the legal regulations in North Carolina against the excessive use of restraints. Under certain circumstances, the use of restraints to tether a nursing home patient to his or her bed may be unavoidable. However, too often, staff members use restraints out of laziness, carelessness or active abuse, and this can lead to serious physical harm to the elderly.

The North Carolina Bill of Rights for Nursing Home Patients states the following:

EVERY RESIDENT SHALL HAVE THE FOLLOWING RIGHTS…To be free of mental and physical abuse. Except in emergencies, to be free of chemical and physical restraint unless authorized for a specified period of time by a physician according to clear and indicated medical need.

Unfortunately, there are still many instances in which nursing home staff use restraints for reasons having little to do with a resident’s needs or safety. Here are some examples:

• An overwhelmed aide doesn’t have time to tend to a mentally impaired patient, so she restrains her for hours so she can be "safely" ignored.
• An unruly resident who is still physically mobile is restrained almost round-the-clock so he can’t run away.
• A resident complains about treatment, and her aide retaliates by putting her in restraints.

Other than the obvious physical discomfort that restraints inflict, the mental and emotional damage can be severe, resulting in depression, anxiety and an overall worsening of an already impaired nursing home resident’s mental acuity. There is also the risk of serious physical injury in that being restrained for long periods of time can lead to the development of bed sores and other pressure sores. These wounds are difficult to treat, slow to heal and are gateways for bacterial infections, such as the potentially fatal sepsis bacterial blood infection.

Unless a patient is in danger of injuring themselves or others if left unrestrained, there is little excuse to use restraints on elderly patients. There is never a good reason to restrain a patient for hours at a time, especially if the real reason is an overworked or negligent nursing home staff. If you suspect that someone you care about who lives in a nursing home is suffering abuse through the excessive use of restraints, contact our North Carolina nursing home neglect attorneys at Allen L. Broughton, P.C. for legal advice and advocacy.