During Patient Safety Awareness Week—March 12 to March 18—we’re extra excited to participate alongside health care organizations and individuals advocating for patient safety excellence. As part of our contribution, we at VirtuAlly are sharing resources and recommendations that focus on various aspects of patient safety. We’re starting with a topic dear to our hearts and core mission: elderly fall prevention.
Elderly Fall Prevention: A call to action for all adults
The World Health Organization reports that adults over age 60 suffer the greatest number of fall fatalities. According to the CDC, at least 300,000 older people are hospitalized for hip fractures.
Falls can extend hospital stays (added time spent in the hospital due to fall-related injuries cost an average of $14,000 per patient). Falls also increase the chance of hospital readmission. For example, a study examining the long-term outcomes for elderly patients who sustained a ground-level fall indicated that, within 1 year of injury, 44.6% of the patients were readmitted.
The fear of falling can reduce confidence and cause elderly people to feel isolated.
Since aging causes our bodies to go through various changes that can negatively impact our balance, coordination, and mobility, fall injuries can also threaten independence and erode confidence. So, even if you’re not an older adult, there is likely an older person in your life who will appreciate your intentionality around protecting them against falls. Therefore, as a first step, we recommend understanding the causes behind accidental falls which senior adults encounter.
Falls are a serious health risk for elderly adults; preventing falls at home can significantly reduce debilitating injuries. In this article, we explored several practical tips and resources for elderly fall prevention. We hope that the resources and recommendations we’ve offered will be applied in practice.
As always, your perspective helps us make workplaces better for patients and caregivers. Contact us to share your thoughts or to request a demo of our virtual patient monitoring technology.
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