Fall In Long Term Care Essay

Most hospitalized patients of 65 years and above have been established to be more vulnerable to falling within their homes or in a facility. These falls have been attributed to various causative agents that need to be assessed and managed in an attempt to completely avert falls (Wilbert, 2010). Prevention of falls should be mandatory since they cause more danger to patients, including breakage of the main bones and even death. As a result, the patient may develop a more serious condition such as decrease functional immobility in addition to that which caused hospitalization. Most of these falls have been found to be caused by therapeutic impacts and ignored diagnostic information (Naqvi, Lee & Fields, 2009). For instance, a great number of elderly people who are hospitalized are diagnosed with dementia at the time of admission; hence, such information needs to be taken into consideration during the care of such a patient. Dementia is likely to cause disorientation and confusion which may result in recurrent falls. Therefore, falls may be described as the abrupt and unintended loss of uprightness that leads to body displacement towards the ground falls (Wilbert, 2010). The purpose of this paper is to develop a falls prevention, management program that will reduce the number of falls occurring within an organization.

When a person suffers from dementia then they are at an increased risk of falls. People with Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia tend to be at a high risk of falling. They are more than three times more likely to fracture their hip when they fall, which leads to surgery and immobility. The rate of death following a hip fracture for those with Alzheimer's is also increased. Thus, fall prevention for people with dementia is critical. There are many causes for a person with dementia to fall over and jeopardise their health, the first is Physical Weakness, Gait Changes and Poor Balance, Lack of Physical Exercise, Memory Impairment, Poor Judgment and Visual Misperception, Alzheimer’s can affect the visual-spatial abilities, a person can misinterpret what he sees and misjudge steps, uneven terrain, shiny areas on the floor or changes in floor color. Be sure to have his vision checked regularly.

Falls among any individual can cause significant trauma, often leading to an increase in mortality. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2012), one in every three adults over the age of 65 falls each year. Long-term care facilities account for many of these falls, with an average of 1.5 falls occurring per nursing home bed annually (Vu, Weintraub, & Rubenstein, 2004). In 2001, the American Geriatric Society, British Geriatric Society, and the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons Panel on Falls Prevention published specific guidelines to prevent falls in long-term

Nurses help to ensure patient safety, which includes preventing falls and fall-related injuries (Quigley, Neily, Watson, Wright, & Strobel, 2017). The general population is at risk for falls and fall-related injuries, more specifically the elderly, 65 and over (Quigley, Neily, Watson, Wright, & Strobel, 2017). Patient falls are one of the top events for hospitals and long-term care facilities due to loss of physical function or cognition (Quigley, Neily, Watson, Wright, & Strobel, 2017). Fall-related injuries are a serious health issue for the elderly population (Quigley, Neily, Watson, Wright, & Strobel, 2017). Nurses make a major contribution to patient safety by assessing fall risk and designing patient-specific fall prevention

In DC, community based fall prevention programs have been rising to address falls but fall related incident, injuries and the cost has continuously been rising among elderly people (Costello & Edelstein, 2008). In the study conducted by Berland et al. (2012), showed that in home health, not viewing patient safety as primary prevention, lack of investigation causing fall and frailty of elderly adult have been some factors contributing to falls in home health. Falls negatively impacts an individual living in their home by causing them physical, emotional problem, giving rise to additional cost by losing workdays and income.

Falls are considered a leading cause of mortality and injury among older adults and majority of the falls occurs while hospitalized. One would think being in the hospital would be one of the safest places for older adults as far as fall prevention is concern due to the fact that hospitals provide staffing around the clock for patients but more and more falls have been occurring in the hospital especially in the older adult population. Fall is an unintended descent to the ground. It raises public and family care liability; it also decreases patient’s functioning because it causes pain and suffering, and increases medical costs (Saverino et al, 2015). The Center for Disease Control

Elimination of patient falls is not an easy task otherwise they would have been eliminated by now. Patient falls unfortunately continue to be a challenge and occur within the hospital and nursing home settings at alarming and sometimes deadly rates. The Center for Disease Control estimates that 1,800 older adults living in nursing homes die each year from fall-related injuries. Survivors frequently sustain injuries resulting in permanent disability and reduced quality of life. Annually, a typical nursing home with 100 beds reports 100 to 200 falls and many falls go unreported (CDC, 2015). Falls occur more often in nursing homes because patients are generally weaker, have more chronic illnesses, have difficulty ambulating, memory issues,

Contributing elements of patient falls include patients’ balance, gait, impaired cognition, and a history of falling (Tzeng & Yin, 2015). Studies have proven there is a correlation between “nursing staff and adverse patient

Elimination of patient falls is not an easy task otherwise they would have been eliminated by now. Patient falls unfortunately continue to be a challenge and occur within the hospital and nursing home settings at alarming and sometimes deadly rates. The Center for Disease Control estimates that 1,800 older adults living in nursing homes die each year from fall-related injuries. Survivors frequently sustain injuries resulting in permanent disability and reduced quality of life. Annually, a typical nursing home with 100 beds reports 100 to 200 falls and many falls go unreported (CDC, 2015). Falls occur more often in nursing homes because patients are generally weaker, have more chronic illnesses, have difficulty ambulating, memory issues,

Falls are highly common amongst the elderly, particularly those who lack mobility, are in hospital, or are living in a nursing home. When an elderly person falls, their activities of daily living may be impacted due to injuries sustained from the fall. It is essential that precautions are put in place to prevent falls in all settings. This essay will discuss the statistics surrounding falls, prevention strategies, and the impacts of a fall on a patient’s ability to complete activities of daily living.

Falls in an acute care setting lead the list of injury related deaths and deaths in the elderly. “A fall is defined as any event which patients are found on the floor (observed or unobserved) or an unplanned lowering of the patient to the floor by staff or visitors” (Kalisch, Tschannen, and Lee, 2012, p. 6). Medicare and Medicaid changes in 2008 list falls as one of the 10 hospital acquired conditions for which hospitals will no longer be reimbursed because falls are considered preventable conditions. Joint Commission accredited hospitals are required to assess for falls risk and implement falls prevention measures.

According to the Joint Commission Resources-JCR (2005), there is no universally accepted definition of a fall. Thus several definitions have been floated over time in an attempt to define the same. One such definition of a fall is "an untoward event that results in the patient or resident coming to rest unintentionally on the ground or another lower surface" (Joint Commission Resources, 2005). Falls are regarded common causes of injury at every age. However, it is important to note that for seniors, falls can have serious consequences. This is more so the case given that a fall can bring about pain, trauma, or even death. With that in mind, the primary purpose of this program remains the reduction of falls and hence the aversion of related injuries amongst the concerned patients. Of key importance remains the identification of patients who appear to be at high risk of falling. This way, appropriate strategies can be developed to reduce the injuries related to inpatient falls.

Falls are the leading cause of unintentional injuries in the elderly patients living in the long-term care setting. The aim of this project was to identify risk factors associated with increase falls among the elderly in order to prevent and monitor safety related events relating to falls. There are numerous risk factors associated with falls among the elderly, as the direct care nurse, working in the long-term care setting, we need to identify any possible factors that can contribute to falls, in order to prevent injury. Through evidence-based research and education we can help decrease the incidents of falls in our elderly community.

This kind of challenging behaviour leads to abuse. In aged care settings falls are common. It was suggested by Hudson (2003), with up to 60% of resident’s experiences fall one or more falls during a 12-month period. People with dementia don’t know what is good for them or what is not.

A fall is a lethal event that results from an amalgamation of both intrinsic and extrinsic factors which predispose an elderly person to the incident (Naqvi et al 2009). The frequency of hospital admission due to falls for older people in Australia, Canada, UK and Northern Ireland range from 1.6 to 3.0 per 10 000 population (WHO 2012). The prevalence of senior citizen’s falls in acute care settings varies widely and the danger of falling rises with escalating age or frailty. Falls of hospitalized older adults are one of the major patient safety issues in terms of morbidity, mortality, and decreased socialization