Dozens of elderly people have died across the US in the last five years after walking away unchecked from assisted-living or supposedly secure dementia or memory care facilities, a national study has found, highlighting a lack of effective oversight in a burgeoning industry.
Most of about 100 deaths since 2018, reported Monday by the Washington Post, were weather-related, involving exposure to extreme heat or cold. Some of the “elopements” – the industry name for those who leave unnoticed or unsupervised – were not found until days or even weeks later.
In the majority of the more than 2,000 cases the newspaper found of residents wandering away or simply being left outside, failures by caregivers or administrators were cited, with many care homes understaffed, ignoring alarms, skipping bed checks or otherwise neglecting crucial safety procedures.
The Post also found a disparate range in the handling and reporting of such episodes at assisted-living facilities. Unlike nursing homes, where there is federal regulation and oversight, individual states are responsible for investigations of assisted-living facilities and enforcement of regulations and few have adopted strong staffing or adequate training requirements, it said.
Only 29 states have “complete and up-to-date” inspection records, published to websites that are often hard to find or difficult to use. Many others require relatives to file public records requests to find out information – or to contact a state ombudsman.
The Post said that, as a result, its investigation was limited to only about 40% of the country, and that the figures nationally, had they been calculable, would have been even more alarming.
Examples cited include a 77-year-old woman with dementia who walked out of her assisted-living facility in Des Moines, Iowa, one evening in January 2022 when the temperature outside was -11F (-23C). Staff, who ignored a door alarm and repeated alerts on their mobile phones and iPads, found her eight hours later, collapsed outside with ice on her body. She died in hospital of exposure.
A 77-year-old man in North Carolina died from multiple organ failure after being found covered in fire ants and wasp stings almost 24 hours after leaving a North Carolina facility; and the body of a 79-year-old man was found face down in shallow water in the woods in South Carolina two weeks after his second disappearance from his care home.
Families of those who had died were frequently lied to. Records for an 86-year-old woman who was left unattended in a sweltering Colorado courtyard for six hours in June 2021 claim she “passed outside watching the sun set, an activity that she loved”.
Numerous families who spoke to the Post said they were let down after assuming their loved ones would be safe and well cared for in often pricey facilities promising security and well-trained staff.
“The thing I grieve the most is I tried everything I could for her to be safe. That’s why she was there,” the granddaughter of the Iowa victim said.
According to the Post’s investigation, the popularity of assisted-living facilities for people with Alzheimer’s, dementia or other memory diseases has grown exponentially in recent years to the point where it is now a $34bn industry, catering to about 1 million residents, compared with 1.2 million in nursing homes.
