nursing homes news stories on Newser

Deadly Nursing Home Fire Caused By Meth Lab

Rob Quinn — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 08:14:22 CST

Ohio fire officials responding to a routine nursing home fire found a most unusual cause behind the blaze: A secret meth lab in the room of a nursing home resident. The blaze in Ashtabula, Ohio, killed one person and injured five others, investigators say. "When we first started to get...

Joplin Tornado Killed 11 at Single Nursing Home

Tue, 24 May 2011 17:28:07 CDT

At least 11 people were killed at one Joplin nursing home by the tornado that devastated the southwest Missouri city, the home's operator said today. Bill Mitchell, who operates Greenbriar nursing home on the city's south side, said 10 residents and a staff member were among the victims when four...

Nursing Homes, Big Pharma Overmedicating Seniors

Matt Cantor — Tue, 10 May 2011 16:38:13 CDT

Nursing homes are treating dementia sufferers with powerful antipsychotics despite FDA advice to the contrary, according to a Health and Human Services report spotted by Pro Publica . The FDA began requiring antipsychotics to carry warning labels in 2005 stating the increased death risk they pose for dementia patients. But 88%...

Shocking Facility Elder Abuse Caught on Tape

Rob Quinn — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 02:42:32 CDT

Three workers at a nursing home in Pennsylvania have been arrested after being caught on tape hitting and mocking an elderly woman who suffers from dementia. Relatives of the 78-year-old woman installed a hidden camera after officials at the home rejected their suspicions that she was being abused, ABC News...

94-Year-Old Beaten to Death in Nursing Home

Sun, 03 Oct 2010 13:10:00 CDT

Authorities say an 81-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of murder for allegedly beating to death his 94-year-old roommate at an Orange County nursing home. According to police, William McDougall allegedly took a bar used to hang clothes from a closet, and used it to repeatedly strike his roommate,...

Germany OKs Assisted Suicide in Some Cases

Kevin Spak — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 11:15:00 CDT

A German court made a landmark ruling in favor of euthanasia today, overturning the conviction of a lawyer who’d advised a family to cut a comatose relation’s feeding tube. The patient, 71-year-old Erika Kuellmer, had made it clear she didn’t want to be kept alive if she ever fell into...

Can a Robot Seal Really Take Care of Grandma?

Kevin Spak — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 12:56:00 CDT

Is Paro—the adorable robotic seal designed to comfort the elderly—the best thing to happen to solitary seniors since the Clapper, or a tasteless substitute for human attention? Manufactured in Japan and recently cleared in the US as a Class 2 medical device, the $6,000 robot is intended...

Autopsy Shows 100-Year-Old Was Murdered

Kevin Spak — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 11:31:20 CDT

A Massachusetts medical examiner has ruled the death of a 100-year-old nursing home patient a homicide by strangulation. Elizabeth Barrow was found dead in her room Sept. 24, with a plastic bag over her head and no obvious signs of struggle, a law enforcement source tells the Standard-Times of New...

Journos Sign Shields' Mom Out of Nursing Home

Rob Quinn — Sat, 16 May 2009 03:25:49 CDT

An outraged Brooke Shields says a pair of tabloid reporters hungry for a story checked her mother, a dementia sufferer, out of a nursing home earlier this week, People reports. Shields says police informed her that two National Enquirer reporters posing as her mother's friends signed her out of the...