Patient Wandering and Elopement in Nursing Homes & What to Do if It Turns Deadly

We all become more forgetful as we age, but certain elderly populations lose their ability to recognize familiar places and faces. This confusion can lead to a danger called elopement. Elopement is common, but dangerous enough that nursing homes and other elder care facilities are legally required to do everything possible to prevent it. If your loved one’s elopement from a facility resulted in their harm or death, here’s what you need to know about how to handle it.

What Is Patient Elopement in Nursing Homes?

Elopement is another term for wandering. In a nursing home, elopement refers to when a resident leaves the facility without notice or permission. It could happen either intentionally or unintentionally, but it is typically because the resident is confused or lacks safety awareness.

While nursing homes and other long-term care facilities aren’t prisons, many residents need supervision to an extent that they need an escort because they have degenerative diseases that affect their mental and physical health. When residents with cognitive or physical impairments leave a care facility on their own, it puts them at obvious risk. The resident could easily get lost, become dehydrated or hyperthermic, and even be injured or killed if they wander into a dangerous area or are outside in adverse weather conditions.

Patient elopement episodes are often a side effect of Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia, but they can also be caused by sleep disorders, medication changes, and high stress (for example, when a resident is adjusting to a new living situation). Even something as common as an elderly resident going for a walk and forgetting where they were headed can lead to an elopement.

Nursing homes must assess and regularly monitor each resident’s health conditions, medications, and behaviors for many reasons, and elopement risk is one of them. The facility is responsible for determining if there is a risk of patient elopement, even if the resident has no history of it, and put protections in place to prevent it from happening. Failing to prevent wandering or belatedly realizing a resident is missing, especially when it results in harm or death for the resident, could be a sign of nursing home neglect.

How Common Is Elopement in Nursing Homes?

It’s common. According to the Alzheimer’s Association, six out of 10 people with Alzheimer’s disease will wander and become lost. This includes those in some type of elder care facility, as well as those in their home environment. In nursing homes, that number declines but is still high. It is estimated that up to 31% of nursing home residents with dementia wander at least once.

Elopement can be deadly and the clock starts ticking as soon as the resident goes missing. There is a 25% fatality rate if the individual is not found within the first 24 hours and the survival odds decrease with each hour that passes. Because the risk of elopement in nursing homes is high, it’s critical that these facilities have iron-clad preventative and response plans in place.

See Also: “5 Things to Do Before Choosing a Nursing Home”

How Do Nursing Homes Prevent Patients From Eloping?

Nursing homes are legally obligated to take a two-phase approach to prevent patient elopement. First, facilities must perform an elopement evaluation for every resident to determine who is at risk, and update that assessment as the resident’s condition deteriorates (or simply changes, as in the case of administering a different medication). Secondly, the facility must also put safety measures in place to prevent elopement. Here is an overview of how good nursing home accomplish both requirements:

Identify Who Is at Risk

In every elopement evaluation, nursing home staff will look for different behaviors and health conditions to determine if the resident could be at risk. This assessment will take into account the current and past behaviors. Red flags for elopement risk include:

• Diagnosis of dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, or other cognitive disorders
• Previous elopement or wandering episodes
• Comments about wanting to leave, go home, go to work, etc.
• Appearing nervous or anxious
• High mobility with the ability to move about the facility freely

Put Preventative Measures in Place

While no one wants their elderly loved one to feel like they are locked up, the risk is too high to let most residents go wherever they want. Every state legally requires care facilities to implement reasonable preventative measures to keep at-risk patients from wandering outside. Safe, high-quality nursing homes will have:

• Enough staff to supervise residents in the facility
• Staff trained in handling residents who wander and how to redirect the residents’ behavior
• Locks and alarms on windows
• Keypad codes and alarms on doors
• Working cameras that are monitored by staff to track resident movements
• Frequent bed checks and roll-calls
• Wander management bracelets for at-risk residents
• Secure fencing or gates around the facility’s premises

Even if a resident does manage to get out of the facility, good nursing homes will have a clear policy on how to respond. If a patient is missing, most facilities will go into lockdown. They will search inside and outside the premises. Most people who wander are found within 1.5 miles of where they disappeared. If the nursing home staff does not find the resident, they will call 911 to report the incident and notify the family.

Is a Nursing Home Trustworthy if It Allows a Patient Elopement Episode To Occur?

It’s to be expected that residents will attempt to leave a care facility without authorization, whether it’s because they are confused, lost, or still adjusting to the facility. But there is a big difference between an attempt and a success, and how the nursing home responds to an elopement episode will tell you a lot about its reliability.

Failing to enforce the necessary security measures to keep patients from wandering could indicate there is nursing home neglect. Another indication of negligence is when the staff does not act quickly after an alarm signals a resident is missing or trying to leave the facility. It should never take hours to notice a resident is missing and respond appropriately.

If you suspect a nursing home is acting negligently and allowing the elopement of elderly residents, you have a right to look into the case. If your elderly loved one is injured or killed because of wandering, the facility could be liable for the harm.

If a Patient Elopement Results In Death, How Can a Nursing Home Be Held Liable?

If your loved one leaves the nursing home and is injured or killed because they were not monitored appropriately, your family may have a claim against the nursing home for neglect or negligence. You should report the elopement incident and contact an attorney who specializes in nursing home litigation. The attorney will help you determine the strength of your case, investigate the nursing home and its preventive measures, estimate the damages, and handle all paperwork and legal proceedings.

The average settlement for nursing home elopement claims varies widely and depends on the details of your case. Be wary of anyone who promises you a specific dollar amount. The good news is you won’t be out any money if you decide to hire a lawyer and file a claim. Most nursing home attorneys work on a contingency basis, so you don’t have to pay anything unless you win your case. You can hold the facility accountable and get justice for your family without having to take out a bank loan.

Get Help Proving Nursing Home Negligence

Nursing homes should have thorough elopement risk assessments and prevention plans. If they don’t and a patient elopement episode caused harm to someone you care about, we can help. With over 30 years of experience, GT Law is the authority on healthcare liability claims in Tulsa. We have been holding nursing homes and other care facilities liable for their actions since the ’90s and sincerely care about getting justice for your family. Contact us for a free case evaluation—you can call, email, or even text.