Failure to Provide Assisted Bathing and Grooming for Dependent Resident
Penalty
Summary
The deficiency involves the facility’s failure to honor a resident’s right to dignity and appropriate personal hygiene and grooming. Facility policies on Resident Rights and Bathing required that residents be treated with respect and dignity, be offered baths or showers in accordance with their preferences (or at least twice weekly if no preference was voiced), and receive assistance with grooming. Resident #131’s admission MDS dated 10/20/25 documented no cognitive impairment, substantial assistance needs with showers, bathing, and personal hygiene, and diagnoses including heart failure, pneumonia, and respiratory failure. The resident’s care plan dated 2/8/26 identified an ADL self-care deficit related to limited physical mobility, respiratory impairment related to respiratory failure, and a need for substantial assistance with showers and personal hygiene. From 2/2/26 through 2/9/26, there was no shower sheet or documentation that the resident had received a shower or shave, and no refusal documentation indicating that a shower or shave had been offered and declined. On observation and interview on 2/8/26, the resident was in bed with dry, flaky skin, disheveled and greasy hair, facial hair, and body odor, and reported having been in the facility since Tuesday without receiving a shower, bed bath, or shave, despite staff repeatedly saying they would at least provide a bed bath and trim facial hair. The resident stated they were there because they needed help and had not received the help needed, and that the lack of cleanliness and grooming made them feel self-conscious and uncomfortable. CNAs, an LPN, the DON, and the Administrator all stated that residents should receive at least two showers per week, that refusals must be documented, that residents requesting shaving should receive assistance, and that residents should be clean, dry, and well groomed, and acknowledged that this resident, who was present for five days, should have received at least one shower.
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