Title: Nursing Home Understaffing - Causes, Risks and Consequences
Headings: Nursing Home Understaffing
Nursing Home Understaffing
Nursing Home Understaffing Reasons
Impact of Overtime
Nursing Home Understaffing Consequences
Immobile Patient Consequences
Neglect of Needs
Abuse of Patients
Prevalence of Nursing Home Understaffing
Preventing Nursing Home Understaffing
Handling Understaffing Consequences

Content: Understaffing can make it impossible for staff members to turn and move patients as often as necessary to prevent bedsores and muscle atrophy. This can lead to painful skin conditions and infections. Neglect of Needs
Patients depend on caregivers for food, bathing, medication, and grooming. If a patient is not bathed and groomed regularly, sores and infections can develop, especially if the patient is incontinent or needs assistance to use the bathroom. Understaffed nurses may have difficulty feeding and administering medications to all patients on a regular schedule. This can cause malnutrition, nutritional deficiencies, and many different complications from missed or improperly administered medications. Abuse of Patients
Nursing home understaffing may also result in patients being physically and emotionally abused. Abusive staff members report stress from understaffing issues as a primary factor in becoming abusive. Having a limited amount of time to care for each patient can also cause staff members to become impatient and use unnecessary force when caring for patients. Prevalence of Nursing Home Understaffing
Reports indicate that as many as 95 percent of the nursing homes in America may be understaffed.