Esther Korn, a 72-year-old woman, has been admitted to the hospital with a diagnosis of dehydration and serious bruises from a fall sustained in her home. She was found by a neighbor, Anna Knight, who...

Esther Korn, a 72-year-old woman, has been admitted to the hospital with a diagnosis of dehydration and serious bruises from a fall sustained in her home. She was found by a neighbor, Anna Knight, who says she stops by Esther’s home daily because Ms. Korn has lived alone with her eight cats since being discharged from a state hospital with a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, which is believed to be under control with medications. From the degree of dehydration, the health professionals believe that Ms. Korn was very dehydrated before she fell and that she had been lying on the floor for at least a day. The emergency medical technicians who brought her to the hospital described her home as “filthy, full of dirty dishes and clothes strung all over, with cat droppings everywhere.”