How Bedsores can Harm Patients

Bedsores are commonly called pressure sores or pressure ulcers. These injuries involve damage to the skin and tissue due to the placement of prolonged pressure. In many cases, pressure sores form when people are kept in bed and unable to move, resulting in a dangerous and painful situation If your loved one lives in a nursing home and experiences bedsores, it can prove very helpful to contact an attorney for help.

Causes of Bedsores

In nearly all cases, bedsores indicate that nursing home or surgical neglect has occurred. In many cases, bedsores form because staff is not taking proper measures to make sure that a patient is adequately monitored. In other cases, bedsores form because staff does not adequately care for a patient. Other times, medical staff fails to take adequate steps to make sure that proper safety measures including proper positioning during lengthy surgeries are taken to reduce the risk that bed sores develop.

The Stages of Bed Sores

There are four stages of bedsores. While stage one bedsores are the mildest, stage four pressure sores are the most painful. The more severe types of bedsores can result in extreme pain. In some cases, a person’s bone can become infected or sepsis can occur due to a bed sore. Often, these bedsores are hard to treat and result in the patient’s death. Almost always, bedsores take a long time to heal. Bedsores are broken into the following stages:

• Stage 1 bedsores involve closed wounds and intact skin with redness.
• Stage 2 bedsores involve shallow open wounds that present as open blisters.
• Stage 3 bedsores involve deep wounds that resemble craters and involve loss of tissue but not bone, muscle, or tendon loss.
• Stage 4 bedsores involve substantial loss of tissue that involves exposure of bone, muscle, or tendons.
• Unstageable bedsores involve an unknown amount of tissue loss because dead tissue makes it difficult to see the affected area.

Prevention of Bedsores

Skilled medical professionals know how to decrease the risk of bed sores. The most important of these steps include the following:

• Regular repositioning of a patient’s body every several hours helps to decrease the chances of bed sores.
• Medical professionals know how to help a person lie down properly and avoid placement on hip or tailbones by using foam pads as leg rests.
• Supportive mattresses including air or memory foam help to soften the pressure placed on a person’s body, which decreases the risk of pressure sores.
• Inspecting patients on a routine basis helps medical professionals to determine whether bedsores are forming. Detecting bed sores early helps to prevent pressure sores from forming.

Contact a Skilled New Jersey Medical Malpractice Attorney

In many cases, bedsores leave patients facing complications that significantly affect their lives. These complications can last for several months, years, or in some cases even for the rest of a patient’s life. If you have been harmed in such a way and need the assistance of a medical malpractice attorney, do not hesitate to contact the Ferrara & Gable today for assistance.