Panama City Florida Injury Lawyer Blog

Hip implants are routinely done these days to counteract the painful effects of arthritis. What was unusual until recently was the failure of the implants. They usually perform admirably. However, enter DePuy, a Johnson and Johnson company, and things changed. It engineered, manufactured, and promoted a hip implant that has been a catastrophe.

This is not unlike the situation with drugs and other medical devices that were inadequately tested before they were put on the market or that the manufacturers delayed recalling after learning their products were dangerous. In the case of the DePuy hip implants, which are identified as the DePuy ASR and the DePuy ASR XL models, the problems are so bad that people who have gotten those implants are having to get another surgery to replace the defective implants.

The cost of replacement is many thousands of dollars, and the unfortunate victims of DePuy's and Johnson and Johnson's carelessness experience a great deal of pain with the corrective surgery. Unfortunately, those problems are merely the tip of the iceberg. The DePuy implants are constructed of 2 parts, a metal ball and a metal socket. That is, they are metal on metal implants. Other implant manufacturers make metal to polyethylene implants. The difference is significant. Early metal on metal designs of the 1950s and 1960s were encouraging in terms of stability and low wear but, as a whole, didn't meet expectations for design and manufacturing reasons irrelevant to their problems today.

As the early manufacturing difficulties were resolved, their popularity again increased in the mid-1990's, but a DePuy implant is different from other metal on metal implants. The DePuy design has an obvious design defect. The cup is too shallow for the ball. What happens as a result? According to researchers who presented papers at the 2010 meeting of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons, three serious negative events occur with metal on metal systems when the cups are too small. They are production of a higher amount of metal ions in the joint, an increased failure rate of implants due to the additional metal debris there, and less tolerance to suboptimal positioning of the implant by the surgeon. Hundreds, maybe thousands of these implants that were just recalled by DePuy a few months ago, are being worn by total hip replacement patients in this area now. This is of concern not only because of the profound pain they can cause but also because of grave health problems that can be caused by the metal ion release of the metal on metal construction. I will give you those details next time. In the meantime, if you want more information about what to do if you have one of these implants, call or email me.

Is there such a thing as the "right" nursing home? Not if you or I are going there. We will pitch a fit. But let's be realistic. Sometimes we have to choose the best option for ourselves or for a family member. When we have to, how will we make the hard but necessary decision?

In my last post, I gave some statistics that should make us think a lot about how to make the right decision. Recently, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services gave one in five certified nursing homes only one star of five based on quality of care, staffing, and health inspections. For profit homes, contrary to our expectations, have the worst performance according to the Government Accountability Office. My research in cases that I've been asked to investigate show that reported deficiencies in nursing homes are only the tip of the iceberg and that substantial histories, documented in the medical records, show that untreated pressure sores, malnutrition, falls and other problems occur regularly. So what is one to do?

One source of information is attorneys in your neighborhood. We may have a useful perspective on who we are regularly asked to sue and who we are never asked to sue. That in itself may provide a lot of guidance for nursing home selection. When we investigate alleged nursing home malpractice cases, we look at common financial, administrative, medical and quality of life concerns that typically arise in nursing home settings. We closely examine inspection reports, medical records, and staff logs for evidence of failures in staffing, training, supervision, equipment, and oversight, but your problem is to look for red flags before you decide to sign the agreement to admit your family member there.

Here are some simple suggestions developed after a long time of looking at nursing homes that provide good care and those that don't. Consider the family member's special needs, for example, respiratory therapy. Make sure the facility offers that service and has a history of compliance with the necessary certification standards. Also, make sure the facility doesn't regularly reject appropriate patients simply for staffing convenience or cost control. Check the records about the nursing home in places like Nursing Home Compare or similar sources. Those records should document the facility's record on key quality measures like infection control, pressure sores, weight loss, bladder control, use of restraints, daily living skills, and pain treatment. The records provide a good snapshot of each home in comparison to others.

Continue reading "Using Reasoned Judgment to Choose the Right Nursing Home " »

An alert security guard may have saved 213 passengers headed for Detroit from potential peril. A Delta airlines pilot was removed from the cockpit of a Boeing 767 on November 6th and was found to be almost 5 times the legal limit for pilots, a quarter of the maximum for drivers. First Officer George La Perle was departing from Heathrow airport in London when security guards detected alcohol on him. When asked for his destination, he told the guards he was flying to New York. They followed him to the plane he was to pilot and found that the flight was in fact heading to Detroit. When he was removed from the cockpit, it was reported his shoe laces were undone. Could he have been preparing for a nap along the way? It's anyone's guess but certainly a safety issue for those 213 passengers on board. As a frequent flyer, this is a concern for me as well.

According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), nearly 70 million passengers traveled on US airlines in the month of April, 2010 alone. Each of those passengers is relying on the pilot to get them to their destination safely and with any luck, on time.

An alarming number of reports reveal pilots are taking to the air under the influence of alcohol. As recent as September, another pilot already on the runway preparing for takeoff was stopped and removed from the plane departing from Amsterdam headed for New York.

This is not a new problem. In 2002, two pilots were arrested when they were about to pilot a plane from Miami to Phoenix. In trial testimony, it was said they spent several hours in a sports bar consuming 14 glasses of beer and left the bar just 6 hours prior to takeoff. One of the pilots had been on probation for a highway DUI just months before.

Continue reading "US Pilot Grounded After Security Guard Suspected Alcohol Consumption" »

If you are going to a nursing home or choosing one for a family member, there's no such thing as the "right" nursing home, because going there will always signify a frightful change. But just maybe there is a right nursing home where life will be pleasant, and the care will be given with kindness.

Since I handle nursing home cases, as do many other attorneys who are experienced in personal injury and malpractice law, I am often asked for advice about how to choose a nursing home. Decisions like this can affect every one of us, so I take the questions seriously and give the best advice I can. That's because I've had a look at the dark side of nursing home care - pressure ulcers that penetrate to the bone, blood infections caused by dislodged feeding tubes, broken bones over and over again from unattended falls, restraints that entangle and cause terror or, even worse, strangulation - all compounded by malnourishment, dehydration, untreated depression, and chronic inattention from inadequate staffing.

Recently, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services gave one in five certified nursing homes only one star of five based on quality of care, staffing, and health inspections. These are common problems for the 1.5 million Americans in nursing homes, but they don't have to happen. For-profit homes, contrary to our expectations, have the worst performance according to the Government Accountability Office. Even those statistics don't offer a reliable picture of the problem. The Medicare/Medicaid star system, for example, is partly based on unaudited self-reports about staffing and quality of care criteria. My research in cases I've been asked to investigate show that reported deficiencies are only the tip of the iceberg and that substantial histories, documented in the medical records, show untreated pressure ulcers, malnutrition, falls and other problems that regularly happen in advance of these investigative findings.

So how do you come to the point of selecting the best nursing home for yourself or a family member? Whether it's someone else or me who typically represents nursing home residents against the homes they hire to provide quality care, we have to say at the outset that we are not social workers, physicians, or nursing home case managers. With that caveat, we can say that we offer someone looking for a nursing home one thing, that is, an attorney's perspective on common financial, administrative, medical, and quality of life concerns that arise in nursing home care. And we as a group can offer some tools for evaluating how well a specific nursing home evaluates them. Considerations about which nursing home to select are so important for end of life decisions that any attorney practicing in this area of law, who is worth his or her salt, should give this advice without charge. Next week, I will suggest some things for you to consider.