Pleasant Law Blog (Insurance Claims, Medical Misakes, and Nursing Home Claims)

Nursing Homes and Private Equity Investors

Nursing home chains have worked hard to avoid accountability for their wrongdoing in cases of nursing home abuse, neglect, injury and death. The purchase of large nursing home chains by large private equity groups has, arguably, made accountability more difficult. If you or someone you love has been hurt by a nursing home, the link contained in this title will take you to an interesting article on this subject. This Baltimore Sun article is about the impact and concers about arge private equity groups, such as the Carlyle Group, purchasing nursing home chains. Concerns include the difficulty this can present in holding nursing homes accountable for nursing home injury, wrongful death, abuse and/or neglect. Because so many nursing home chains have grown so much in the recent past, homes in even the most rural areas of North Carolina and other states are often owned by huge nursing home operators. Whether you are in Fayetteville, Wilmington, Raleigh, Charlotte, or any other North Carolina city, the nursing home your loved one is in may be owned by one of these large chains.  A bill is pending in Congress that would help vicitms of nursing home abuse and neglect, and their attorneys, hold nursing homes accountable in this regard.

Mild Traumatic Brain Injury: whether the result of delivery room medical error, car wrecks, or another type of accident, these injuries require a unique approach

The Law Offices of Thomas Waitt Pleasant, PLLC - Toll Free: 888-HELP-156 - “Mild Traumatic Brain Injury” can occur when, essentially, a person’s brain is “shaken” inside the skull, and the brain tissue is affected by its impact within the skull. Our brains are naturally capable of this kind of movement within our skulls. So if someone is in an automobile accident, for example, a car might keep moving, but when the body stops, the brain itself might continue moving inside the skull, impacting the inside of the skull and causing injury. The same thing happens with the injury an infant gets from “shaken baby syndrome.” Conceivably, traumatic brain disorder can occur during a traumatic birth in the hospital delivery room.

The science of this kind of brain damage is complex, particularly considering the tests neurophysiologists use to determine and quantify the existence and nature of such injury. But, despite the complexity of the science of mild traumatic brain injury, cases involving such injuries ultimately boil down to the testimony of friends, family, former employers, and other possible “lay witnesses” who can testify as to the often dramatic change that occurs in life of the injured victim. Despite that mild traumatic brain injury is a more subtle diagnosis from a medical standpoint, its impact can be huge, and in some cases, lasting. Sometimes people with this kind of brain damage don’t recognize it; and many lawyers don’t recognize it, either.

Click on the title of this article to link to a website on traumatic brain injury.

If you have been hurt, whether in a car wreck, truck accident, fall, by a doctor or hospital’s error, look for these signs: transient confusion, disorientation or impaired consciousness; dysfunction of memory around time of injury; and loss of consciousness for less than 30 minutes. Also, looking practically at the changes in one’s life can be evidence, such as personality changes, newly-developed difficulty in doing organizational/executive type work, etc. If your head has been hurt in an accident, you can contact my law office for a free consultation. If you are outside the Fayetteville area, we can meet with clients in our Raleigh or Wilmington offices as well. In some cases, I will travel to your home to discuss your legal case, and whether a lawsuit is appropriate. We can do an initial legal evaluation of your injuries and get you pointed in the right direction.