Family sues nursing home over mother’s death

The family of a woman who died in a Milford nursing home is suing the home after family members say the woman was given drugs without their consent.

Sylvia Pierce was living in Genesis Healthcare Inc. in 2014 when the nursing home gave her Zyprexa and other drugs intended to treat mental illness, said Chase Brockstedt, an attorney representing Pierce’s family.

The drugs were administered without legal consent from her children, Robert Pierce and Sandra Ahn, who held medical powers of attorney and were the only people who could approve the use of the drugs because their mother lacked capacity to consent, Brockstedt said. As a result, he said, Pierce's health deteriorated dramatically, and she died less than two months after the facility administered the drugs.

Brockstedt said Zyprexa can be fatal when given to elderly people with dementia like Pierce. 

"We are devastated," said her son, Robert Pierce. "We put our trust in Genesis Healthcare and the Milford Center to care for our mother. Instead, they overmedicated her with drugs that had deadly consequences for her without my family's knowledge or consent. We are filing this lawsuit with the hope of alerting other families to dangerous nursing facility treatment of people with dementia."

Zyprexa is an atypical antipsychotic drug, a group of extremely powerful psychotropic drugs which the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved for the treatment of psychotic conditions such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Most importantly, the FDA has warned that Zyprexa brings an increased risk of death for elderly patients with dementia-related psychosis, said Brockstedt, who is joined by AARP Foundation Litigation in the lawsuit.

"Our firm is on the front lines of nursing home litigation in Delaware with the goal to protect the aged and hold those responsible for abuse and neglect accountable. This case is a tragic example of what happens when patient care is secondary to corporate profits," he said.