Falls among seniors can be prevented

Falls are a lead­ing cause of injury among peo­ple over the age of 65. Some of the most severe injuries, such as hip frac­tures and head trauma, can raise the risk of early death. They also can rob peo­ple of their inde­pen­dence, mak­ing it harder for them to be mobile.

One out of three adults over the age of 65 falls each year, accord­ing to the Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol. In 2008, nearly 20,000 older Amer­i­cans died from unin­ten­tional fall injuries and more than 2 mil­lion were treated in emer­gency depart­ments for non­fa­tal fall injuries.

The chances of falling increase with age and among peo­ple who have had a pre­vi­ous fall. The fear of falling forces many peo­ple to limit their activ­i­ties and inter­feres with their qual­ity of life.

For­tu­nately, no mat­ter your age, most falls are pre­ventable. Falling among older adults is one of the pri­or­ity areas for our Ohio Injury Pre­ven­tion Part­ner­ship work­ing to raise aware­ness, edu­cate the pub­lic and affect pub­lic pol­icy (such as tax relief for home mod­i­fi­ca­tion expenses) regard­ing fall prevention.

A good pre­ven­tion pro­gram should begin with a thor­ough health assess­ment from your physi­cian to iden­tify risks, espe­cially if you have already expe­ri­enced a fall. The CDC has iden­ti­fied four major pre­ven­tion strategies.

• Reg­u­lar exer­cise focused on bal­ance and leg strength is one of the most impor­tant things you can do. The CDC rec­om­mends Tai Chi pro­grams as espe­cially appro­pri­ate and ben­e­fi­cial for older adults. Exer­cise not only can pre­vent falls, but help you recover after a fall.

• Some med­ica­tions or med­ica­tion inter­ac­tions cause side effects such as dizzi­ness and drowsi­ness. Ask your physi­cian or phar­ma­cist to review your pre­scrip­tions and over-the-counter medications.

Poor vision can some­times lead to falls. Have your vision checked each year and update your eye­glass pre­scrip­tion. A pair of single-vision dis­tance lenses may be help­ful for some activ­i­ties such as walk­ing outdoors.

• Home mod­i­fi­ca­tion is crit­i­cal because about half of all falls occur at home. Make a thor­ough review of your home to reduce clut­ter; secure handrails and ban­is­ters; and have ade­quate light­ing, espe­cially in stair­wells, hall­ways and bath­rooms. Non-slip sur­faces and grab bars can pro­vide nec­es­sary sup­port in and out of the shower. Toi­letries and other items should be arranged to elim­i­nate reach­ing and stoop­ing. Out­side the home, paints can high­light the edges of steps and cre­ate non-stick tex­tures on slip­pery surfaces.

• Researchers are pay­ing increas­ing atten­tion to the role nutri­tion plays in fall pre­ven­tion and injury recov­ery. Ade­quate amounts of vit­a­min D and cal­cium in food and/or sup­ple­ments help build bone den­sity to lower the risk of hip fractures.

The Delaware Gen­eral Health Dis­trict offers the award-winning A Mat­ter of Bal­ance class for peo­ple at risk for falls at Grady Memo­r­ial Hos­pi­tal and other sites. Call 740–368-1700 for infor­ma­tion. Ohio­Health runs a fall pre­ven­tion pro­gram at the Ger­lach Cen­ter for Senior Health in Colum­bus that includes a com­pre­hen­sive med­ical eval­u­a­tion and a cus­tomized fall pre­ven­tion plan. Call 614–566-5858 or visit OhioHealth.com/seniorhealthservices for information.

Tina Young is an occu­pa­tional ther­a­pist at Grady Memo­r­ial Hospital.

Posted by Grady Memorial Hospital on Sep 12 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.