Bedsores
What is a Bedsore?
A bedsore is an injury caused by pressure, most commonly on the body's main pressure points which include the buttocks, sacral area, coccyx, low back and the heels of the feet.
Medical terms for a bedsore include decubitus ulcer, pressure wound, pressure injury or pressure sore. Regardless of which of these words is used to describe a bedsore, the injury generally should not happen at a health care facility if the facility is providing proper care.
Health care facilities often leave patients lying in bed too long without providing adequate turning and repositioning, which can result in serious bedsores. Bedsores can become infected and can be fatal.
What Does a Bedsore Look Like?
Bedsores can take on various forms.
The worst type of bedsore is a Stage 4 injury where the wound is open with visible depth all the way down to the bone. Stage 4 bedsores can look gruesome, almost as if the victim was attacked by a shark.
Sometimes an open bedsore contains dead tissue, which makes it difficult to see how far the depth of the injury is. This type of bedsore is referred to as an unstageable pressure injury.
Other times, a bedsore can develop under the skin while the skin is still closed. This type of bedsore, known as a Deep Tissue Injury or DTI can also be a serious injury even though it is harder to see how severe the injury is.
We are specially trained to win all types and stages of bedsore cases, including Stage 1, Stage 2, Stage 3, Stage 4, unstageable and Deep Tissue Injuries.
Who is to Blame for the Bedsore?
Health care facilities often try to make excuses that a bedsore was unavoidable. We believe bedsores are generally avoidable and are the result of neglect and a lack of adequate care.
Sometimes it may be difficult for a family to know who is to blame for a bedsore. For example, a family member may fall at home, suffer an injury and require a prolonged hospital stay. After the hospitalization is over, patients in this condition are often sent to nursing homes or rehabilitation centers before they can return home. In many of these instances, after a few days at the nursing home or rehab center, a family member learns that their loved one developed a bedsore, but they don't know if the injury occurred at the hospital or the nursing home.
Health care facilities will often try to blame one another for bedsores, with the nursing home or rehabilitation center claiming the wound was Present on Admission ("POA") at their facility, meaning it happened at the hospital, but the hospital instead contends that the bedsore occurred at the nursing home or rehab facility after the patient left the hospital.
We obtain and analyze all the pertinent medical records and photographs, we determine who is at fault, and we bring claims against any and all health care facilities who share responsibility for the bedsore. Often times, we find there is more than one at-fault facility. We regularly bring claims against multiple health care facilities for a single bedsore, including claims against the hospital for the negligence and neglect of causing the initial development of the skin breakdown and against the nursing home or rehabilitation center for the negligence and neglect of causing further deterioration of the bedsore.
When you contact us, we will immediately begin our free case evaluation which will include an analysis of which health care facilities will be investigated as the potential at-fault parties for the bedsore.