Lessons from nursing home dysphagia malpractice litigation

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to review the management of swallowing disorders in nursing home patients. The goal is to provide readers with five areas of contentious dysphagia management issues that have surfaced in several malpractice litigation cases. A detailed examination of what went wrong in the management of these patients' dysphagia from the perspective of the plaintiffs' dysphagia expert witness, as well as a discussion of what nursing home staff could have done to prevent these tragedies, is presented.