Word: levangs
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Dates: during 2001-2001
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Here comes the latest horror story from the ragged frontier of care for the elderly. Like a lot of aging baby boomers struggling with ailing parents, Peter Levang fretted 2 1/2 years ago when his mother Dolores, already plagued with mild dementia, became incontinent. He considered a nursing home--the classic option for those too sick to live alone and too needy to live with family. It seemed a dreary choice. Then Peter heard about a center just 15 minutes from his house. It was an assisted-living facility, part of a new way to live--and die--with dignity...
...Levangs then began to hear alarming stories from other residents' families. Tina Sowells' grandmother Freda Trimble, then 89, had to be hospitalized after an anxiety attack because for several days she hadn't been given her necessary dose of Xanax. Fran Firth complained that her mother, Grace, then 74, had been left lying in her feces for several hours until her skin peeled; the company says her diaper was changed regularly. "We could not have been more disappointed," says Bonnie Levang...
That incident, along with complaints by Levang and other residents' families, prompted Minnesota attorney general Mike Hatch to sue Alterra for consumer fraud. The suit was settled, with Alterra agreeing to pay for an outside monitor. The center hired more staff, including a housekeeper, and modified its brochure, replacing the phrase "professionally trained" staff with "trained" staff. But for many of its other Minnesota facilities, Alterra insists having staff provide "holistic" care is effective...
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