Dexter Health Care: Nurse Restrained Dementia Resident - ME
The incident happened on August 16, 2025. The resident, identified only as R1, had dementia and was having what one nursing assistant described as a normal weekend behavioral episode, the kind she said she handled regularly and was good at de-escalating.
What happened instead was the opposite of de-escalation.
According to CNA4, the registered nurse, identified as RN1, had her arms crossed around the resident's upper shoulders. "I am not sure that R1 could have moved his/her arms because of the way that RN1 had her arms positioned," CNA4 told inspectors on August 29. "I'm not sure R1 would have been able to lift his/her arms up."
CNA4 said she tried to intervene. She was told to leave.
"She was personally yelled at and told to remove herself from the situation by RN1," the inspection report states. CNA4 told inspectors that RN1's repeated insistence — "you can't go outside, you can't go outside" — and the decision to keep returning the resident to their room made things worse. "The situation was escalated by RN1," CNA4 said.
RN1 told inspectors a different story. She said she never held the resident's hands down. "I tried to pick them up so that I could wheel the chair but that was it," RN1 said. "I didn't try to hold them, I just tried to get them out of the way of the wheels."
CNA2 saw it differently. She told inspectors that R1 was flailing their arms trying to hit RN1, and that RN1 then "reached over his/her shoulders, to hold them down." CNA2 heard RN1 say "OW" — the sound of being bitten — but did not see the bite itself. She described the episode as "dragged out."
After the bite, RN1 took the resident outside. The resident calmed down. When they came back in and wanted to go outside again, RN1 said she didn't have anyone available to accompany them. "I mean I don't know if you ever worked with demented people, you can't really reason with them," RN1 told the surveyor, "so it was like we were trying to explain to him/her, alright give us a few minutes we'll find somebody to go out with you and you can go back out but R1 didn't want to hear that."
That framing, that the resident's distress was a problem of dementia and irrationality, is precisely what CNA4 pushed back against. She had seen this behavior before. She knew how to handle it. She was in the process of handling it when she was told to stop.
CNA4 said RN1 was "speaking in a frustrating manner" and that R1's hands were moving. The resident's agitation, in her account, was a response to how the situation was being managed, not simply a symptom of their condition.
Inspectors cited the facility under F0600, the federal tag covering abuse, neglect, and exploitation, at a level of actual harm.
The resident wanted to go outside.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Dexter Health Care from 2025-08-26 including all violations, facility responses, and corrective action plans.
Additional Resources
Data source: Official federal inspection data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
Editorial process: AI-synthesized regulatory data, reviewed for accuracy by our editorial team.
Professional review: All content reviewed by Christopher F. Nesbitt, Sr., NH EMT & BU-trained Paralegal.
Last verified: July 5, 2026 · Our methodology
Dexter Health Care in Dexter, ME was cited for violations during a health inspection on August 26, 2025.
The incident happened on August 16, 2025.
Health inspections identify deficiencies that facilities must correct. Violations range from minor documentation issues to serious safety concerns. Review the full report below for specific details and facility response.