Practice Area
St. Louis Nursing Home Fall & Fracture Lawyer
A fall can change an elderly resident's life in an instant. When a nursing home fails to take reasonable precautions for a resident it knows is at risk, the resulting fracture or head injury may be more than an accident. We help families find out whether proper care was given.
Why falls are so serious for elderly residents
For a younger person, a fall might mean a bruise. For an elderly nursing home resident, a fall can mean a broken hip, a head injury, surgery, and a permanent loss of mobility. The consequences cascade: immobility leads to muscle loss, pressure wounds, and pneumonia. A fall that an able-bodied person would shrug off can begin a fatal decline.
That is why fall prevention is a core duty in any long-term care facility. Residents are often admitted precisely because they need supervision and assistance that they can't get at home. When that supervision fails, the harm can be irreversible.
Common fall-related injuries
Hip fractures are among the most serious. They frequently require surgery and a long recovery, and they carry a high risk of complications in older residents. Head injuries, including subdural hematomas, can be difficult to detect immediately and may present as confusion or drowsiness. Other broken bones, wrists, arms, and ribs, are also common and can cause lasting pain and loss of function.
How Falls Happen
Where nursing home falls occur
Falls rarely have a single cause. They happen at the points where care and environment meet a resident's limitations.
Unsafe transfers
Moving a resident between bed, wheelchair, and toilet without enough staff or proper equipment can lead to dropped or fallen residents.
Bathroom falls
Wet floors, a lack of grab bars, or no assistance to a high-risk resident make the bathroom a common fall site.
Falls from bed
Missing bed rails, improper bed height, or ignored fall-risk precautions let residents roll or climb out of bed.
Wheelchair accidents
Unlocked wheels, missing footrests, or improper use of lap trays can cause wheelchair-related falls and injuries.
Environmental hazards
Clutter, poor lighting, loose rugs, and wet floors create hazards that are preventable with basic maintenance.
Wandering & elopement
An unsupervised resident who wanders into stairwells or exits the facility can suffer serious falls and exposure.
Fall-risk assessments and care plans
Every resident should be assessed for fall risk on admission and when their condition changes. The assessment looks at mobility, prior falls, medications, cognition, and other factors. It should drive the precautions written into the care plan: how much assistance the resident needs with transfers, whether bed alarms or low beds are appropriate, and how closely they must be supervised.
When a fall-risk assessment is missing, outdated, or ignored, the care plan won't match the resident's actual needs. That gap is often where preventable falls originate.
Call-light response, supervision, and repeat falls
A resident who needs help to the bathroom and presses a call light that goes unanswered may try to get up alone. That single unanswered call can cause a hip fracture. Inadequate supervision and slow call-light response are recurring factors in fall cases.
Repeat falls are a particular concern. One fall should prompt a review of the care plan and precautions. When a resident falls again and again without a meaningful response from the facility, each subsequent fall becomes more clearly foreseeable, and more clearly preventable.
Medication & Falls
When medications raise fall risk
Some falls aren't caused by the environment alone. They're caused by what a resident was given.
Sedatives, sleep aids, blood pressure medications, and psychotropic drugs can all cause dizziness, drowsiness, or unsteadiness. A resident newly started on such a medication, or one receiving an incorrect dose, may be at sharply elevated fall risk. That risk should be recognized, documented, and addressed in the care plan.
In some cases, the fall is really a medication error problem in disguise. Reviewing the medication administration record alongside the fall incident can reveal whether a drug, or a dosing mistake, contributed to the fall.
After a Fall
What should happen after a fall
The response to a fall matters as much as the prevention. A proper post-fall protocol protects the resident from further harm.
When a fall is treated as routine and none of these steps follow, repeat falls and serious injury become far more likely.
Frequently Asked Questions
Questions about nursing home falls and fractures
Does a fall automatically mean the nursing home was negligent?
No. A fall by itself does not establish negligence. The question is whether the facility took reasonable precautions based on the resident's known needs and fall risk. A single, unanticipated fall may not indicate a problem, but repeat falls, ignored precautions, or a missing fall-risk assessment can suggest reasonable care wasn't taken.
What is a fall-risk assessment and why does it matter?
A fall-risk assessment evaluates a resident's likelihood of falling based on factors like mobility, medications, cognition, and prior falls. It should guide the precautions in the care plan, such as assistive devices, supervision, or bed alarms. A missing or ignored assessment is often central to a fall case.
Can a hip fracture in a nursing home be serious?
Very. Hip fractures in elderly residents can lead to surgery, long immobility, loss of independence, and a significantly elevated risk of complications and death. A hip fracture is one of the most consequential injuries we see, and it often follows a fall that proper precautions might have prevented.
What should happen after a resident falls?
A post-fall assessment should check for injury, especially head injury, and a physician should be notified when indicated. The care plan and fall-risk assessment should be reviewed and updated. When a fall is treated as routine and the underlying risks aren't addressed, repeat falls often follow.
Can medications contribute to fall risk?
Yes. Certain medications, including sedatives, blood pressure drugs, and psychotropics, can cause dizziness, drowsiness, or unsteadiness. A resident on several such medications may be at heightened fall risk, and that risk should be recognized and managed. See our page on medication errors for more.
What records help investigate a nursing home fall?
Fall-risk assessments, care plans, incident reports, nursing notes, call-light response records, staffing records, and post-fall assessments can all help show whether reasonable precautions were in place and whether the fall was addressed properly.
A fall shouldn't be brushed off as just getting older.
If your loved one suffered a fracture or head injury in a St. Louis nursing home, tell us what happened. We can help determine whether reasonable precautions were in place.
Confidential. No obligation. Speaking with us does not create an attorney-client relationship.