Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 13, 1995 TAG: 9509130063
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: Associated Press|
DATELINE: FALLS CHURCH LENGTH: Medium
Jean Sagnier, a retired journalist who had worked for the Voice of America, fell Friday from a window at Sunrise Retirement Home in Falls Church. He apparently had forced the window open despite the safety stops it had.
``The regulations don't reflect the level of care that is really taking place in assisted living,'' said Lin Noyes, director of Family Respite Center in Falls Church and a member of the Northern Virginia Alzheimer's Association.
Noyes said an industry study showed more than 40 percent of people in assisted-living homes suffer from dementia.
``Staff needs to be trained to deal with a dementia patient who is going to put himself in a dangerous situation,'' said Rita Schumacher, director of the Northern Virginia Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program, a government agency.
Sagnier's son, Thierry Sagnier of Falls Church, said Monday that police told him there had been a report that his father tried to climb out a window earlier last week. He also said his father had come to the home directly from the Howard University psychiatric unit in Washington, where he had been for 15 days. He said Sunrise didn't put his father under any special observation when it admitted him.
The safety stops were added in May 1993 to windows on the third floor, where residents with dementia live, after a resident climbed out onto a roof and hurt his foot. Schumacher said that resident was taken to a hospital, where he died of pneumonia a week later.
In response to Friday's accident, the facility has added new stops to all third-floor windows, said Catherine Scott Asplen, vice president of the company's mid-Atlantic region. She said the home was using heavy rubber stops bolted to the window sills that are supposed to prevent windows from being raised more than eight inches.
State and local officials, including Falls Church police, continued investigations Monday into the death of Sagnier, who died at Fairfax Hospital.
Assisted-living facilities, originally designed for generally healthy older people who needed help with cooking, cleaning or dressing, have accepted sicker people over the years, according to advocates for senior citizens. The homes fill a need for people who no longer can care for themselves but do not need the intensive medical care available around the clock at nursing homes.
Nursing homes are stringently regulated at the state and federal levels. Assisted-living homes are not.
Keywords:
FATALITY
by CNB