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"State Requires Nursing Homes to Create Solutions to Violent Situations"
More than 1,000 nursing home residents in Massachusetts are attacked by other residents, according to statistics collected by the state. In response to a recent study of Massachusetts nursing homes, state public health officials have ordered nursing homes to take measures to protect their vulnerable residents.
The study, the first in the nation to examine cases of injuries inflicted on nursing home residents by their peers, found that victims were most often men with declining mental capabilities and a tendency to wander. Research showed that some victims unintentionally provoked a violent response when they wandered into the wrong room, or ate off another resident''s plate. The most common injuries were cuts or bruises, and over half the injuries reported were to the head and neck.
The study, published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association, did not include the aggressors. Instead, researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health and the state Department of Public Health looked at over one thousand reports of physical abuse in 2000. They focused on 294 persons who sustained visible injuries. The reports of peer-inflicted injuries outnumbered reports of staff abuse by a ratio of two to one.
Researchers had several suggestions for nursing homes, including the use of music therapy and other programs designed to calm residents, and warning signs posted outside the rooms of residents who can become violent when confronted.
According to Janet Wells, policy director for the National Citizens'' Coalition for Nursing Home Reform, at least part of the problem relates to staffing at the nursing homes. "The typical nursing home is not equipped with enough staff to take care of. a frail elderly patient," Wells stated. "They''re certainly not trained or equipped to deal with aggressive patients. We hear about cases of the same resident injuring people again and again with no action taken."
Most of the reported cases involve assaults by younger, mentally ill patients with histories of violence on older patients who were improperly roomed nearby.
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