If your spouse suffers from paralysis and home healthcare workers come into your home regularly to care for him or her, you might be very surprised if he or she develops bedsores on one or more body part. If the bedsores caused a serious illness, you might be able to hold the home healthcare company responsible for this problem. Here are a couple things you should know about this.

What Are Bedsores?

Bedsores, also known as pressure ulcers, are serious injuries people can develop when there is too much pressure in one spot on the body. These are prevalent in certain body parts, such as the ankles, hipbones, and elbows, but they can develop almost anywhere on a person's body. Bedsores occur most often to people who are bedridden, yet they can be prevented with the right care.

When a person is in bed most of the time and cannot move on his or her own, bedsores will develop when blood flow is restricted from the constant pressure placed on bony areas of the body. When this happens, the tissue in these areas begins to die and bedsores can develop.

Bedsores start off very small but can progress quickly if left untreated. They are easy to spot at first though, and the home healthcare workers should have looked for them. When bedsores are detected soon after they develop, they can easily be treated and cured. If they are not detected and treated quickly, they can lead to serious problems, including infections in the bone.  

The best way to prevent bedsores is frequent movement. If you had home healthcare workers at your home each day, they should have been keeping their eyes on your spouse to look for signs, and they should have focused on moving your spouse often. Frequent movement reduces the pressure on one particular area, and this keeps the blood flowing freely.

Can The Home Healthcare Company Be Held Liable For This?

If you can prove that the home healthcare workers were negligent with the care you paid them to provide, you will have a good case on your hands. The best thing you can do in this situation is talk to a personal injury attorney.

The attorney you hire will probably want to see the contract you had with the home healthcare agency first. The contract will state the agreement you had with the company. It will most likely state the responsibilities and duties of the agency, and one of the things listed might be to provide full care for your spouse.

In this situation, the agency should have taken the appropriate steps to prevent the bedsores from forming. By allowing them to develop, you will have proof that the workers were indeed negligent. In addition, once the bedsores began forming, they should have taken every necessary step to treat them before they became serious. If they did not take every step they should have, you could use this as another form of evidence to prove negligence.

With enough evidence, your lawyer can help you recover money as compensation for what happened to your spouse. This can include compensation for covering the costs of any medical bills that incurred from this, and it may also include compensation for pain and suffering.

Home healthcare agencies provide at-home services for many different types of situations, and they take on responsibilities each time they accept new patients. If you would like to find out more information regarding your legal rights with the problems your spouse has gone through, contact a personal injury lawyer in your area to schedule a consultation appointment.