Healthcare professionals routinely check patients for early signs of erythema, or skin redness. But visual inspections sometimes fail to detect reddening of the skin and other indicators of tissue damage, especially in people with darkly pigmented skin. If undetected, these at-risk sites can develop pressure ulcers says California Nursing Home Abuse and Neglect Attorney Steven C. Peck.
Beyond ulcers looms a more serious risk for these patients - that of pressure-induced, deep-tissue injury, which occurs below the skin and is often not diagnosed visually until it has reached a dangerous, advanced stage.
Healthcare practitioners may be able to reduce their patients' risk of these complications by supplementing their visual inspections with a low-cost, handheld imaging device that could detect both early-stage pressure ulcers and the more serious deep-tissue injuries.
In addition to the human costs of pressure ulcers, there are monetary burdens, as well. The cost to heal a pressure ulcer is estimated to reach $40,000 for certain ulcers, Sprigle notes. In the United States alone, the costs associated with healing ulcers and worker productivity losses exceed $2 billion a year.
Like many cases involving bed sores (also referred to as: pressure sores, pressure ulcers or decubitus ulcers) the nursing homes main argument is usually that the patients wounds were 'unavoidable'.
While there may be a limited number of circumstances where skin-breakdown occurs despite the implementation of all feasible preventative measures--- most cases of bed sores simply result from downright neglect and faulty care-- the facility simply not doing its job in caring for the patients says California Nursing Home Abuse and Neglect Attorney Steven C. Peck who can be contacted toll free at 1.866.999.9085.
