Nursing home residents should not have to suffer and die from terminal bedsores, but this avoidable tragedy continues to happen.

As the population around the world ages, more elderly residents are at risk of nursing home neglect that results in preventable falls, bedsores and other injuries.

In Nova Scotia, the government has reduced funding to nursing homes, and now only one registered nurse is required to be available to residents. Licensed practical nurses and care assistants do not receive the formal training in wound care that the registered nurses are required to undergo. When LPNs or care assistants change wound dressings, these actions must be performed under the supervision of a registered nurse.

Two Nova Scotia nursing home residents recently allegedly died as a result of terminal bedsores, open wounds that became infected. Bedsores are considered to be preventable in most cases.

According to one Ontario study released in 2015, nearly 15 percent of patients in hospitals, home care and long-term care settings suffered from bedsores.

Bedsores can develop in infirmed patients who are not turned over regularly. Their own weight places steady pressure on the skin, which eventually gives way from poor circulation and becomes an open wound known as a bedsore.

In other cases, incontinent patients are left too long to soak in their own urine. The long-term wetness against the skin makes a patient 40 percent more likely to develop bedsores, according to more than one clinical study.

Patients with dementia are at an increased risk of developing open wounds such as bedsores because they are inclined to repeatedly rub their skin.

Development of Terminal Bedsores

Blood flow delivers oxygen and nutrients to tissues to keep them healthy. Bedsores develop because tissues that are deprived of oxygen and nutrients as a result of poor circulation are susceptible to damage and even, tissue death. Terminal bedsores are those that have become infected because the body is unable to deliver infection-fighting blood cells to the open wound.

Cellulitis is one of the complications that can result in terminal bedsores. Cellulitis is skin and soft tissue infection that induces redness, swelling and warmth in the infected area. Any patient with nerve damage will not feel pain from a cellulitis infection, which means it can become serious and result in terminal bedsores before it is diagnosed.

Bone and joint infections can develop from terminal bedsores, as well. An infection that starts out in the skin can seep into the joints, becoming septic arthritis that can destroy cartilage and deep tissue. Bone infections are known as osteomyelitis and can place limbs at risk.

Some bedsores that are long-term, nonhealing, open wounds can ignite squamous cell carcinoma, a type of cancer.

Terminal bedsores also are possible when the body experiences sepsis, which means a bacterial infection has overtaken the blood stream, causing organ failure.

According to health care professionals, terminal bedsores are avoidable with proper care and attention.