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I’ve worked in facilities where they have violent patients/residents. Especially those with Alzheimer’s disease. Question is- where do they place the violent residents if they cannot be with the non violent? Is there a better solution to all this- rather than lawsuits and fines and all that?

A Des Moines nursing home where an elderly female resident is alleged to have been beaten by a man with a history of violent behavior must pay a $2,000 fine, an administrative law judge has ruled.

Two years ago, Trinity Center at Luther Park, located at 1555 Hull Ave., was fined for failing to protect one of its residents from harm. The state alleged that a male resident entered the room of an elderly woman with Alzheimer’s disease and beat her, leaving her bruised, bloodied and screaming for help.

Videos don’t lie. Neither do people with Alzheimer’s disease- BUT- they live in a world made up of their own nightmares and delusions and in different time periods.

The nursing home appealed the $2,000 fine, which led to an appeal hearing at which a surveillance videotape the nursing home made was shown. The videotape shows the man entering the woman’s room and spending about 12 minutes inside. Shortly after the man exits the room, the woman emerges with blood on her face and yelling for help. She later told officials the man had come into her room, beaten her and left her for dead.

J.R. “Lynn” Boes, a lawyer for the nursing home, argued that the woman was probably the victim of a fall, not a beating. Lawyers for the state said the alleged attacker had a well-documented history of physical violence. When the man moved into Trinity Center five weeks before the incident, he was given a written care plan that included “will not injure peers” as a goal.

A well documented history doesn’t prove this man beat the woman. I would say something did happen- they got into an argument and she perhaps fell after. I really don’t know, and I suspect no one really knows.

The man allegedly struck Trinity Center workers and threatened another resident with a butter knife during his first three days at the nursing home. Immediately after the incident, the nursing home increased the man’s medication, assigned one-on-one supervision and tried to transfer him to a psychiatric unit.

We all have witnessed this stuff. It’s bad- newly admitted residents tend to have a really hard time adjusting to the nursing home environment. They get confused and are often scared. They view attempts for personal care as attacks. It sucks but it is the reality. What more could this facility do- they medicated him, gave him a 1:1 and tried to get him transferred. I have seen many times- the waiting lists for psych units are very long. Its not like we can just kick them out.

Administrative Law Judge Randy Stephenson recently recommended that the nursing home pay the $2,000 fine. He found that Trinity Center failed to supervise the alleged attacker and failed to protect the other residents of the nursing home. He also said the nursing home’s subsequent attempt to alter its own records to support an injury-from-falling theory was “suspect and self-serving.” The Department of Inspections and Appeals has approved Stephenson’s proposed order.

I guess you have to work in these places to have a true understanding of how it all works. To an outsider- a judge- it seems pretty black and white. It’s far from that.