dementia

A newly released report from the Health and Human Services (HHS) inspector general finds that anti-psychotic drugs were being over-prescribed unnecessarily at least 300,000 times between January and June 2007, in some cases leading to the death of a patient with dementia. CBS News reports the study found that 88 percent of the time the federal government through Medicare paid for the anti-psychotic drugs used by nu [...]

A 70-year-old man died after he jumped out of a window at Lancaster General Hospital. According to this article, his family is suing the hospital and two doctors who cared for him. Last summer, the man threw himself through a closed, eighth-story window at the Duke Street hospital and died. He had been hospitalized there for mental health problems. He had a history of seizures and anxiety. He threatened to leave t [...]

A nursing home in Oakmont has been punished by the state and given a provisional license after an 89-year-old woman committed suicide by jumping out her third-story window, reports the post-gazette website. Her son is left full of anguish as to what exactly happened to his mother who had been admitted to the facility in July with heart problems, glaucoma, dementia, and depression. State officials downgraded the Pre [...]