Georgia nursing home attorneys are constantly evaluating pressure bed sore cases. They are such a serious problem in nursing homes in Georgia that Medicare has threatened to stop paying for the care of a bedsore if it is acquired after a resident is admitted into a nursing home. A recent CDC report shows that 11% of nursing home residents had pressure sores, with Stage II being the most common. As you keep reading, I want you to realize that Stage III and IV bed sores should NEVER happen in nursing homes, where staff are there to monitor and treat the conditions that give rise to these awful wounds. They are usually a very strong indicator that a nursing home is not providing adequate care.
The tragedy is that they are preventable!
Bedsores, decubitis ulcers, and pressure sores are all terms that refer the same condition - an injury to a person’s skin and the tissue underneath it. If you sit or lie down in the same position for long periods of time, the pressure on a small area of your body can squeeze shut tiny blood vessels that normally supply tissue with oxygen and nutrients. If the skin and tissue are “starved” for too long, the tissue begins to die and a pressure/bed sore starts to form. You are probably already figuring out these are a very serious risk for nursing home residents who are confined to a bed. In this setting you will most likely see the sores/ulcers develop around the buttocks, hips, and heels. They must be taken very seriously. If left unchecked, a pressure sore can lead to amputation and in the worst of cases even death. Sores can become infected and, especially with nursing home residents whose health is already deteriorating, result in the infection spreading into the whole body.
Pressure ulcers have four stages. The states start out small and easy to treat and progress to very serious, as I touched on above.
Stage I: These will appear as a reddened area on the skin which does not quickly fade, like say when you push on your skin and the “blush” goes away in a second or two. The skin is unbroken and could be warm and slightly swollen.
Stage II: The skin begins to breakdown and blisters form. But the damage is only limited to the dermis (skin) and is not that deep. It can look like a scrape, blister, zit, or crater.
State III: Now the full thickngess of the skin breaks down with skin loss to both the outer and underlying layers of skin. Damage extends all the way down to the connetive tissue to the body (the tissue that holds the skin to the body) but not yet to the muscle. There may be dead tissue which will be black in color (because it is dead). Now the nursing home must remove this dead tissue before healing can begin.
Stage IV: By now the pressure ulcer has become so deep that there is damage to the mucle, bone, and possibly the tendons and joints. The wound can be so bad that it begins “tunnelling” under the skin into the body.
[...] is some good news today on pressure ulcers. Advancing Excellence is a national campaign to improve the quality of nursing homes. The group [...]
[...] body – the tailbone, hips, heels, elbows, shoulders. They are usually categorized in stages(see pressure ulcer primer), with it being commonly accepted that all Stage III and IV pressure ulcers are [...]