New York Nursing Home Wheelchair Accident Lawyers

Nursing home facility staff must provide an appropriate standard of attention to every resident under their care. When nursing home workers neglect to provide the proper level of care, residents can suffer an injury when using a wheelchair or transferring from a wheelchair to a bed, toilet, or shower.

How Can New York Nursing Home Workers Prevent a Wheelchair Accident?

Nursing home personnel should be trained to identify any residents at risk of falling from their wheelchairs and develop a safe environment to minimize the possibility of an accident. People suffering from the following issues may be more likely to suffer a fall from a wheelchair:

• Alzheimer’s disease
• Balance problems
• Confusion
• Declining health
• Dementia
• Physical limitations
• Residents with a history of falling

By providing residents with physical and occupational therapy, a therapist can assess their gait, posterior, or mobility and design a personalized care plan. Therapy can help improve cognitive ability, balance, and physical strength, which, in turn, can reduce the risk of suffering a wheelchair accident injury.

How Can New York Nursing Home Staff Prevent Residents in Wheelchairs from Developing Bedsores?

Bedsores, also known as “pressure ulcers,” are injuries that develop when blood supply is cut off from the skin for long periods, causing the skin to die and develop painful sores. If left untreated, they can extend into the muscle and bone or break open and become infected. Depending on the resident’s physical condition, pressure sores can take years to heal or require surgical intervention.

Nursing home residents who use wheelchairs have some of the highest risks for developing bedsores. To prevent these painful injuries, care facility staff must ensure residents do not remain in a wheelchair for longer than 3-4 hours and should reposition their bodies at least once every ninety minutes to two hours.