Fall prevention

How to prevent falls in the elderly?

09 Jun 2021

In a nursing home with 80 beds, 400 falls occur annually on average, 2/3 of which are not documented or simply not known. How can this be avoided? What solutions exist?

Fractures, fear of falling, hospitalisation: in the elderly, falls have catastrophic consequences. The problem is therefore not just one for nurses, it is a multidisciplinary one.

"The cost of falls is not negligible. We estimate that the time spent by medical and paramedical staff dealing with the consequences of falls in nursing homes, including care, rehabilitation, psychological support and administrative processing time, represents a cost for an 80-bed institution of €150,000 per year."

Eric Krzeslo, CEO of Mintt

Quelles interventions suite à une chute pour une personne âgée ?

Each fall is different and must be analysed in order to mobilise the multidisciplinary team correctly.

The physiotherapist will start rehabilitation in case of muscle weakness or balance problems.
The occupational therapist will help the elderly person to manage their activities of daily living safely.
The nurses or care assistants obviously have a role to play in explaining to the resident what to look out for. A checklist for leaving the room can be downloaded from this site. This instruction sheet contains the points to watch out for when the nurse helps the elderly person to leave the room. Nurses can also ensure that the resident is settled at night by placing walking aids (walker, rollator, crutches, canes, etc.) next to the bed in the appropriate direction.
The management supports its teams and can also decide to modify the layout of the rooms if several falls are due to the furniture (bedside tables with castors, etc.).
The quality manager analyses the falls register and implements corrective actions. The quality manager may also initiate a comprehensive falls prevention plan.

Quid on bed rails

Often teams install bed rails to prevent falling. This is an idea that can be counterproductive in many cases.

"It's not necessarily always a good idea, you have to analyse the situation and the resident's risk behaviour. For example, we once observed, thanks to ISA, the incident of a patient who was able-bodied enough to climb the bed rails. He managed to get out of bed without falling. However, he did not manage to get back into his bed, precisely because of these barriers. He ended up falling out of exhaustion. Thanks to the images we captured and reviewed with the medical team, we were able to understand that his fall was ultimately due to this preventive device."

Jérôme Laurent, Mintt's clinical advisor