My husband had vascular dementia. He had gotten violent so I had to put him in a nursing home. He fell repeatedly. I know dementia patients fall, but they never took him to the hospital to be evaluated after his first fall. I know he fell numerous times. He deteriorated in the nursing home so fast. I put him in on January 6, 2025 and he died on April 6, 2025. I really believe the falls made it so fast.
Whether a fall was the "cause of death" or not is crucial.
What does the death certificate say about the cause of death.
It is very common that elders are not taken to care every time they fall. The general rule is checking to make certain there is no unusual pain, broken bones and otherwise on you go unless there has been head or facial injuries which are checked usually in ER.
Your husband was dying and was in great need of care and that's why you transferred him, but there is no way to stop frequent falls in an elder when the balance goes.
I am very sorry for your pain and you have my sympathy on your loss, but no attorney would ever take such a case. The compensation in
"wrongful death" depends upon how much care the person injured needs ongoing, how long the person would have lived a quality life had this injury not occurred, and how much would this person have earned had he/she not be injured. There would be no compensation quite honestly for an elder with dementia.
If you would like to comfort yourself with knowing for sure do see a personal injury attorney and let him read what I wrote you above. Ask him if that is true. If he wishes to examine and take on your case consultation should be FREE and he should never ask for any money unless a fees of funds won in court case. You, if you are asked for money, need to run fast as you can. An unscrupulous attorney may ask you for money on contingency to examine records, ask experts and etc. This is your fist warning to run.
Consider it a blessing your husband wasn't forced to endure years of violence, misery and falls with his vascular dementia wreaking havoc. I'm sorry for your loss, but happy for his perfect peace.
Plus it is the most aggressive of all of the dementias with a life expectancy of just 5 years, so if his falls took him out a bit earlier than you would have liked, I believe that it was a blessing in disguise, as he didn't have to suffer as long as some do with the other dementias.
I am sorry for your loss but why would you have wanted your husband to continue to suffer like he did? I know I certainly didn't want that for my husband.
As the saying goes...be careful what you wish for.
Typically what happens is many strokes and each stroke causes more damage.
Add to that the fact that falls happen.
I am sure what happened is your husband had a stroke that caused his death not a fall.
Many times a visit to the ER is not necessary if during an evaluation there does not seem to be a problem. (head injury, bleeding, apparent broken bones)
I can not imagine having him taken to the hospital, sedated for a scan that would show that he had a minor stroke or the damage from a previous stroke. Putting him through something like that would be frightening, confusing and I would imagine you would have been called to stay with him as staff from the facility would not be able to stay with him if they even accompanied him to the hospital and I doubt they would have done that.
Knowing that they did not take him to the hospital YOU could have taken him to have him evaluated.
I am sorry that you are going through this. It is difficult to lose a loved one and you always run the "what if's" through your head.
((hugs))
Falls are a natural thing for a dementia patient. If your husband had lived, he could be in a wheelchair with his mind continuing to deteriorate, as my husband's is. My husband will almost certainly die of something other than a fall. He is Stage 7 now.
Today at his memory care facility, I sat across from a woman who cannot sit up in her wheelchair anymore. She can't hold up her head; she can't speak. She has to be fed every bite of her meals and has swallowing issues. It's quite likely that she will die when she can no longer swallow. She will starve to death, since she has requested no feeding tubes or other artificial prolonging of life.
My mom had dementia and kept falling. Eventually she was bedridden and could only be removed from bed with a Hoyer lift. She couldn't communicate and survived on a Boost liquid diet for a very long time. Her teeth turned brown, her limbs contracted and she lay in a fetal position. She cried out a lot. We thought she was in pain, but she couldn't tell us. After years of living like this, she passed, and it was a blessing. I wish she'd died from one of her falls rather than the torturous death that resulted from surviving them.
Before you go too far with this wrongful death idea, consider how your husband's life would be and what he'd be facing if he hadn't died when he did. As a person who will become a widow in the near future, I totally sympathize with your feelings of loss, but please realize that with dementia, there are many ways to die, and some are worse than others.
However… It’s not the falls so much as what caused his body to fall. A mind with dementia can render the body to be unable to do what it normally did. As in walking and being able to maneuver around obstacles.
A friend of mine placed her mom with dementia in a very nice facility. The first time she fell, they took her to the hospital. The staff placed a walker by her bed, but she insists she doesn’t need it. She’s fallen a few more times since and hasn’t been taken to the hospital. Staff monitors her afterward and makes sure she’s okay. Sounds a lot like your husband’s situation.
Unless someone was sitting next to him 24/7, falls were going to happen.
If he was getting violent, then he was likely in end stages of dementia or almost there. Nursing home or no, he did not have much life left in him. And that’s a sad thing to think about.
You have no legit proof that falls killed him. Unless it’s an eager personal injury lawyer, it’s unlikely that a lawyer will take it on. And as I’m sure you know, lawyers are expensive.
You can always meet with a lawyer if you want to pursue wrongful death but I’ll be surprised if anyone thinks you have a case.
I’m sorry your husband died.