ABSTRACT
Approximately 17, 000 nursing homes exist in the U.S., housing 1.5 million patients over the age of 65 years. Deaths in Nursing Homes (NH) are, for the most part, natural and usually do not fall under the medical examiner’s jurisdiction. There are exceptions, such as:
Drug Overdoses
Such deaths may be either inadvertent or intentional. The authors have investigated a number of cases where a patient was given either too much medication or the wrong medication. This situation is probably fairly common, but, in most instances, does not cause death. When death does occur, the nursing home is probably often unaware of the mix-up and assumes the death to be natural. In virtually all the cases where death was caused by an inadvertent overdose and the death was investigated, the circumstances of the case came to light only when an employee surreptitiously notified the medical examiner or the family. Insulin seems to be quite commonly involved in these situations.
