Casey Shively holds a photograph of a household ski journey together with his sister, Katie, and his father, Dan, in 1996. Dan Shively died in a reminiscence care dwelling after being violently attacked by one other resident.
Jessica Plance; snowboarding picture by Crystal Pictures Images/KFF Well being Information
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Jessica Plance; snowboarding picture by Crystal Pictures Images/KFF Well being Information
Dan Shively had been a financial institution president who constructed floats for July Fourth parades in Cody, Wyo., and adored fly-fishing together with his sons. Jeffrey Dowd had been an auto mechanic who ran a canine rescue and hosted a Sunday blues radio present in Santa Fe.
By the point their lives intersected at Canyon Creek Reminiscence Care Group in Billings, Mont., each had been deep within the grips of dementia and exhibiting a number of the illness’s horrible traits.
Shively had been wandering misplaced in his neighborhood, having outbursts at dwelling, and leaving the fuel range on. Dowd beforehand had been hospitalized for being confused, suicidal, and agitated, medical data filed in U.S. District Courtroom in Billings present. When Dowd entered Canyon Creek, managers warned staff in a observe later filed in court docket that he may very well be “bodily/verbally abusive when annoyed.”
On Shively’s fourth day at Canyon Creek, carrying a knife and fork, he walked over to a eating room desk the place Dowd was sitting. Dowd informed Shively to maintain the knife away from his espresso, based on a witness assertion filed in court docket. Shively, who at 5-foot-2 and 125 kilos was half Dowd’s weight and 10 inches shorter, turned to stroll away, however Dowd stood up and shoved Shively so exhausting that when he hit the ground, his cranium fractured and mind hemorrhaged, based on a lawsuit his household filed towards Canyon Creek.
“The physician mentioned there’s not a lot they might do about it,” his son Casey Shively mentioned in an interview.
Dan Shively died 5 days later at age 73.
Police didn’t cost Dowd, then 66. He stayed at Canyon Creek for almost three extra years, throughout which era he repeatedly clashed with residents, typically hitting male residents and groping feminine ones, based on facility data filed within the court docket case. His anger would flare shortly. “I’m actually scared to dying of Jeff,” one nurse wrote in a filed assertion describing Dowd’s dispute with one other resident.
In court docket, Canyon Creek denied legal responsibility for Shively’s dying. Its privately held company proprietor, Koelsch Communities, declined to reply questions from KFF Well being Information. Chase Salyers, Koelsch’s director of selling, mentioned in an electronic mail to KFF Well being Information that the corporate prioritizes “the well being, well-being, security, and safety of our residents.”
Dowd’s kin mentioned in a press release by way of textual content they might not remark as a result of they’d no firsthand data. “We had been more than happy with the care Jeffrey obtained at Canyon Creek,” they added. Dowd was not named within the lawsuit and his present whereabouts couldn’t be decided.
Violent altercations between residents in long-term care amenities are alarmingly frequent. Throughout the nation, residents in nursing houses or assisted residing facilities have been killed by different residents who weaponized a bedrail, shoved pillow stuffing into an individual’s mouth, or eliminated an oxygen masks.
A current research in JAMA Community Open of 14 New York assisted residing houses discovered that, inside one month, 15% of residents skilled verbal, bodily, or sexual resident-on-resident aggression. One other research discovered almost 8% of assisted residing residents engaged in bodily aggression or abuse towards residents or workers members inside one month. Dementia residents are particularly more likely to be concerned in altercations as a result of the illness damages the elements of the mind affecting reminiscence, language, reasoning, and social conduct.
Greater than 900,000 peoplewith Alzheimer’s or different kinds of dementia reside in nursing houses and assisted residing facilities. Lots of the most severely impaired dwell within the roughly 5,000 amenities with locked dementia flooring or wings or the three,300 houses devoted completely to reminiscence care. These locations are largely for-profit and infrequently cost hundreds of {dollars} further a month, promising experience within the illness and a secure atmosphere.
Casey Shively says that as his father’s dementia worsened, it turned more durable for the household to maintain him at dwelling. “He would begin strolling the neighborhood and get misplaced,” Shively says. “He would activate the fuel range however not mild the range and the room would begin filling up with fuel. He would put clothes in unusual locations. I discovered socks in a punch bowl. It received to the purpose the place we couldn’t do that anymore.”
Jessica Plance
/KFF Well being Information
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Jessica Plance
/KFF Well being Information
Clashes will be spontaneous and too unpredictable to forestall. However the likelihood of an altercation will increase when reminiscence care houses admit and retain residents they will’t handle, based on a KFF Well being Information examination of inspection and court docket data and interviews with researchers. Properties which have too few staffers or nonexistent or perfunctory coaching for workers have a more durable time heading off resident conflicts. Properties additionally might fail to correctly assess incoming residents or might preserve them regardless of demonstrated threats to others.
“As a lot as long-term care suppliers typically do their finest to supply competent, high-quality care, there’s a actual drawback with endemic violence,” mentioned Karl Pillemer, a gerontologist at Cornell College and lead writer of the JAMA research.
“There must be far more of an effort to single out verbal and bodily aggression that happens in long-term care,” he mentioned, “and start to create a mannequin of violence-free zones in the identical means now we have violence-free zones within the colleges.”
A hazard to others
The primary indicators of Shively’s vascular dementia emerged in 2011 as confusion, however the illness accelerated in 2016, based on interviews together with his spouse and youngsters and his medical data. He started referring to mountains he knew nicely by the mistaken title and forgot tips on how to tie flies on his fishing line. “The decline was so sluggish at first we thought we may handle,” his spouse, Tana Shively, mentioned in an interview earlier than her dying this 12 months.
Because the illness progressed, his outbursts turned exhausting to deal with. He took a swing at one in every of his sons when upset concerning the temperature in the home. He refused to swallow his medicines and fell repeatedly.
“He would begin strolling the neighborhood and get misplaced,” Casey mentioned. “He would activate the fuel range however not mild the range, and the room would begin filling up with fuel. He would put clothes in unusual locations. I discovered socks in a punch bowl. It received to the purpose the place we couldn’t do that anymore.”
Dowd, in the meantime, had lived in a Santa Fe nursing dwelling and had a protracted historical past of dementia with behavioral points, main depressive dysfunction with psychotic options, and hypertension, based on medical data filed in court docket. Dowd entered Canyon Creek in October 2018 to be nearer to his brother, who lived close by in Wyoming, based on an admission discover the power supplied to staff that was included within the court docket file. The discover mentioned Dowd suffered from dementia brought on by extreme and long-term alcohol use.
Two months later, Shively moved in.
Montana licenses Canyon Creek, which has 67 beds, as a Degree C assisted residing facility, which allows it to accommodate individuals with cognitive impairments so extreme that they can not categorical their wants or make fundamental care choices. Montana regulation says these amenities can’t admit or retain a resident who’s “a hazard to self or others.”
Within the lawsuit, Shively’s household argued that provided that regulation, Canyon Creek by no means ought to have accepted or stored Dowd. The Shively household’s lawyer, Torger Oaas, famous in court docket papers that Canyon Creek’s consumption evaluation type for Dowd categorized his conduct as “bodily and/or verbally abusive/aggressive 1x monthly.” Oaas additionally wrote in court docket papers that in Dowd’s first weeks at Canyon Creek, he mocked and threatened to hit different residents and threw somebody’s silverware to the bottom throughout dinner.
In its protection filings within the lawsuit, Canyon Creek mentioned the Montana statute was too broad to be the idea of a negligence declare and argued that every one reminiscence care residents are unpredictable. And whereas Dowd had yelled and cursed at different residents at Canyon Creek, he hadn’t had bodily confrontations — or any conflicts with Shively, Canyon Creek mentioned. “The accident was not fairly foreseeable,” Canyon Creek argued.
Within the days after Shively’s fall, nurses famous that Dowd was “extra anxious, indignant towards others.” Dowd yelled at a nurse to get off the telephone and “do your job,” a nurse wrote in a logbook entry filed in court docket.
“He received into my face,” the nurse wrote. “It appeared like he was going to hit me — he had his hand/fist raised.”
Canyon Creek Reminiscence Care Group in Billings, Mont., the place Dan Shively died, is licensed as a Degree C assisted residing facility. Degree C amenities are permitted to accommodate individuals with cognitive impairments so extreme that they can not categorical their wants or make fundamental care choices.
Jessica Plance for KFF Well being Information
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Jessica Plance for KFF Well being Information
“As dangerous as I’ve ever seen it”
Individuals with dementia will lash out as a result of they now not have social inhibitions or as a result of it’s the one means they will categorical ache, discomfort, concern, disagreement, or nervousness. Some frequent triggers — overstimulation from loud noises, a frenzied environment, unfamiliar faces — are hallmarks of dementia care establishments.
“We are able to’t count on somebody who is consistently and unfailingly disoriented to adapt to our surroundings anymore,” mentioned Tracy Wharton, a licensed scientific social employee and dementia researcher in Florida. “We have now to adapt to them.”
Eilon Caspi, a College of Connecticut researcher, analyzed 105 deadly incidents involving dementia residents and located 44% had been deadly falls through which one resident pushed one other. “Some persons are aggressive, and a few are violent,” Caspi mentioned, “however when you look carefully, the overwhelming majority are doing their finest whereas residing with a severe mind illness.”
Holly Harmon, a senior vp on the American Well being Care Affiliation/Nationwide Heart for Assisted Dwelling, an business commerce group, mentioned in a written assertion that conflicts can’t at all times be averted regardless of facility operators’ finest efforts. “In the event that they do happen,” she mentioned, “suppliers reply promptly with interventions to guard the residents and workers and forestall future occurrences.”
However Richard Mollot, govt director of the Lengthy Time period Care Group Coalition, a resident advocacy group, mentioned many operators of assisted residing facilities, together with reminiscence care items, are pushed by the underside line. “The problem that we see very often is that assisted residing retains individuals they need to not,” Mollot mentioned. “They don’t have the staffing or the competency or the construction to supply secure care.” Conversely, he mentioned, when amenities have sufficient rooms stuffed with paying clients, they’re extra more likely to evict residents who require an excessive amount of consideration.
“They’ll kick them out in the event that they’re too cumbersome,” Mollot mentioned.
Teepa Snow, an occupational therapist who based Optimistic Method to Care, an organization that trains dementia caregivers, famous that the house inside many amenities, with double rooms, tight frequent areas and restricted out of doors entry, can gasoline conflicts. She mentioned the pandemic degraded situations in long-term care, as dementia residents with restricted social abilities atrophied in isolation of their rooms and staffing grew even sparser.
“It’s as dangerous as I’ve ever seen it,” she mentioned.
“Quite common matches of rage”
The next account of Dowd’s time at Canyon Creek is predicated on 44 pages of nurse’s notes, witness statements, and inside resident-on-resident altercation studies; all had been contained within the facility’s data and filed as reveals within the court docket case. After Shively’s dying in December 2018, Dowd was given new prescriptions, though the court docket file is unclear if the change was due to Shively’s dying. Nonetheless, the data present, Canyon Creek was unable to move off recurring altercations involving Dowd.
Some had been verbal threats. As soon as, Dowd yelled at residents in the lounge to close up, referred to as them “retards” and informed them they need to all die, a caregiver wrote in a witness assertion. He grabbed one resident’s face and threatened to kill him, based on a nurse’s observe. One other time, Dowd went as much as a resident sitting on a settee and grabbed his walker. Dowd shook it and informed him to close up. In accordance with a witness assertion, as a nurse took the resident to the toilet, Dowd muttered underneath his breath: “Stuff his head in the bathroom.”
Different conflicts had been bodily. Dowd shoved a resident “down on his again so exhausting his head bounced off the ground,” a nurse recorded in a observe. In a distinct incident reported by a nurse, Dowd pushed a resident who had been agitated and cursing right into a chair. On separate events, Dowd hit two residents on the top, as soon as inflicting bleeding, based on two resident altercation studies.
The notes element that Dowd was not at all times the initiator. As soon as, Dowd’s roommate scratched and punched him after Dowd informed him to make use of the bathroom quite than pee on the ground, leading to a battle. Caregivers separated the 2. One other day, a resident named Invoice wandered into Dowd’s room and pulled Dowd’s hair and beard. Dowd informed the nurses he “felt unsafe and VERY indignant,” a nurse’s observe mentioned. The nurse led Invoice out of Dowd’s room, however Dowd adopted, yelling at Invoice that he was “a fats bastard” and saying he was going to make Invoice’s spouse a widow.
“Jeff stored making a closed fist as tho he was going to hit Invoice,” the nurse wrote in a witness assertion. “I used to be legit scared as a result of there was nothing I may do to defuse the state of affairs. I’m actually scared to dying of Jeff. I’m scared to strategy him and discuss to him when he will get into these quite common matches of rage.”
Dowd in the end went again to his room and a employee locked his door so no different resident would go in.
The data describe how Canyon Creek caregivers intervened after altercations started, usually separating the combating residents and updating Dowd’s brother on the clashes. Nurses would take away Dowd or the opposite resident from a room and discourage such acts. “Tried to clarify it was inappropriate to harm others,” one nurse wrote after one incident.
Salyers, the corporate advertising and marketing director, mentioned in his electronic mail that the employees at Canyon Creek and different Koelsch amenities are “extremely certified” and “extensively educated.” He mentioned the corporate’s reminiscence care communities are “distinctively designed and staffed” for individuals with Alzheimer’s and different types of dementia.
“It’s good to have a girlfriend”
The nursing notes and statements within the court docket file counsel that incidents had been frequent sufficient that nurses commented on Dowd’s occasional serenity. “No agitated or aggressive behaviors this shift,” one observe mentioned. One other nurse observe mentioned Dowd “continues to isolate at meals, sitting at a desk by himself.” Whereas Dowd loved studying books and doing puzzles, he was overheard saying he was depressed and was “questioning if he wouldn’t be higher off if he wasn’t round anymore.”
Nurses famous Dowd repeatedly exhibited sexual conduct that was both inappropriate — making “crude oral gestures whereas taking a look at youthful females” — or ambiguous, similar to inserting his hand on a resident’s shoulder and commenting, “It’s good to have a girlfriend.” Somebody noticed Dowd “grabbing on a number of residents[’] non-public areas,” a witness assertion mentioned. When nurses caught the conduct, they separated these concerned and rebuked Dowd. A workers member wrote in a press release that Dowd was inappropriate all through her shift, making sexual jokes and “attempting to seize me.”
In accordance with nursing notes, in summer time 2021, Dowd informed one feminine resident he wished to see her genitals and later touched her breast. In August, a caregiver walked into Dowd’s room and located him touching the identical resident underneath her shirt and pants. The caregiver informed Dowd to “cease it and never ever do this once more” and introduced the lady out to fulfill her household, who had come to go to her.
After that incident, Canyon Creek despatched Dowd to the emergency room at Montana State Hospital, a public psychiatric facility, based on a nurse administrator’s testimony in a deposition filed in court docket. The nurse testified Dowd was now not at Canyon Creek. That’s the final point out of Dowd’s whereabouts within the public file. A spokesperson for the Montana Division of Public Well being and Human Companies, which oversees the hospital, wouldn’t affirm whether or not he was a affected person.
At a pretrial listening to, the choose excluded dialogue about Dowd’s altercations after Shively’s dying. In a court docket submitting, Shively’s lawyer requested permission to share proof with the jury that Canyon Creek gave its govt director a bonus any month when 90% or extra of the beds had been stuffed so he may argue Canyon Creek had a monetary motivation to confess Dowd. However the choose additionally barred that info from the trial, which Canyon Creek mentioned in a court docket submitting was irrelevant.
The Shively case went to trial in 2022 earlier than a federal civil jury in Billings. Regardless of the exclusions, the jury determined Canyon Creek’s negligence prompted Shively’s dying. It awarded the household $310,000.
“For us, the cash wasn’t an enormous issue,” mentioned Spencer Shively, one other of Dan Shively’s sons, who referred to as the damages so modest as to be a victory for Canyon Creek or its insurer. “At the least they had been negligent per se. However I don’t comprehend it actually modified something. For me, I received some closure. I really feel like these amenities are simply persevering with to do the identical issues they’re going to do as a result of there hasn’t been systemic change.”
KFF Well being Information is a nationwide newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about well being points and is likely one of the core working packages at KFF — an unbiased supply for well being coverage analysis, polling, and journalism.
