Wandering Off
Wandering Off and Elopement Attorney
Nursing Home Negligence Lawyer
Wandering off (also called elopement) is a recurring issue for nursing homes. Patients with limited strength or with dementia wander off the premises. Because it is a frequent issue, nursing homes should be prepared to prevent wandering off and elopement. When a loved one suffers serious injury or wrongful death from wandering off, contact a nursing home neglect lawyer at Knapp & Roberts.
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Nursing homes should have systems and training in place to deal with elopement. Without careful monitoring, a patient can walk out the door and into the desert heat or into traffic. Or the patient could get confused and lost. At the Knapp & Roberts nursing home neglect law firm, we have handled cases in which wandering off resulted in serious injury and wrongful death.
- Inadequate staffing: A major cause of elopement is the failure to hire enough staff to properly supervise residents.
- Inadequate training: Was the staff properly trained in how to supervise residents to prevent wandering off?
- Failure to provide—and use—alarms: The nursing home needs to have and use alarms to indicate when doors open. When staff members prop open doors and leave them unmonitored, having an alarm doesn't help.
- Failure to identify risks: If a patient is a wandering risk, the staff should be aware of that and take special care to monitor the resident's movements.
- Failure to notify: When a resident wanders off, the appropriate family member should be notified.
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