Reasons For Choking At Nursing Homes

There are a number of reasons that an elderly person may end up choking at a nursing home. Some of them may be natural and some may be the result of a failure of the nursing home to properly watch over the elderly.

Another primary reason for choking with elderly people has to do with the fact that they do not produce as much saliva as younger people. Without the proper amount of saliva, the elderly are more prone to choke. Another reason for choking in the elderly has to do with the fact that many nursing home staff members are not as aware of the dietary restrictions of heath needs of the elderly resident as they should be, which contributes to the elderly person’s choking.

In addition to understanding this, it is equally important to understand exactly how your elderly loved one choked in the first place. Again, some choking incidents are simply unavoidable because of the condition of the elderly person, but many times there are ways to save the elderly person. Knowing the following can be important factors in understanding how the choking took place:

• Whether the choking incident occurred in the elderly person’s own room or whether it took place in a kitchen or main dining area
• If the choking took place in a private room, was the elderly person alone or being fed?
• Was the food the elderly person choked on a food that the nursing home or assisted living facility’s dietician or doctor recommend they eat or was it a food that was not approved?
• Did the nursing home or assisted living facility’s staff call 911 and perform CPR or a Heimlich maneuver in a reasonably fast way or did they take their time, and did this delay lead to the choking person’s injuries or death?

The nursing home or assisted living facility may or may not be especially forthcoming with this information. But obtaining this information is vital to understanding how your loved one was injured.