Elder Law

Caregiver at Nursing Home Charged with Murdering Resident with Morphine

By Levin & Perconti

A caregiver at a North Carolina nursing home was charged with murdering Rachel Holliday, an 84-year-old Alzheimer?s nursing home resident, with morphine. The nursing home caregiver, Angela Almore, also faces charges of felony abuse, which are related to the hospitalization of six other Alzheimer?s patients whom authorities suspect she also gave morphine. This investigation began when authorities suspected abuse after the Alzheimer?s patients tested positive for morphine. The State believes that the patients were likely given morphine to make them more manageable. For the full article on nursing home abuse and overmedication, click on the link.

Overmedication is a problem that arises too often in nursing homes. It is often found that nursing home staff will resort to overmedicating their residents in order to make it easier to manage them. This usually stems from nursing homes being understaffed or insufficiently trained to handle the complex needs of residents with dementia. Of course, this decision to overmedicate, or to medicate without a physician?s order, is against the standard of care. Further, overmedicating residents in nursing homes can have potentially detrimental effects on their health, and can deteriorate their fragile and vulnerable nature. As evidenced by the article mentioned above, and many similar cases throughout the country, overmedication can and does cause death in nursing home residents. For more background about the effects of overmedicating the elderly nursing home population, read the full article on medicating nursing home residents without cause.

Our attorneys at Levin & Perconti are very familiar with the effects of overmedicating nursing home residents. Most recently, one of our attorneys, Partner, Steve Levin, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the licensee of Woodstock Residence, a former nurse, and former nursing director, for administering a heavy dose of morphine that caused the premature death of a resident.

Full post as published by Illinois Nursing Home Abuse Blog on June 20, 2010 (boomark / email).