Home sees progress in decreasing falls
Awareness, education key to preventing falls
Wednesday January 9, 2008 -- Deron Hamel
Over the past few years, Jackie Maxwell says she has seen some big progress at Village Green in measures taken to reduce the number of resident falls at the home.

According to Statistics Canada, falls account for two-thirds of injuries which limit mobility and activities for Canadians. Nearly 14,000 Canadians die as the result of falls every year.

Maxwell, director of care at the Selby long-term care home, points to several measures the home has in place to curb the number of falls.

Constant surveillance on a routine basis is paramount when it comes to ensuring residents don’t fall, she says. In fact, staff members at the home scrutinize individual residents on an hourly basis and even more frequently for residents needing special attention.

Physiotherapy is also a major focus in the effort to reduce falls. Any resident who has had a fall and hasn’t previously been involved with a physiotherapy program will be assessed and assigned a plan to help improve balance and strength.

The home has also utilized personal alarms that residents can use to alert staff members when they are in distress. These alarms can also be clipped to the clothing of at-risk residents at night. Should these residents try to get up at night, staff is alerted and will rush to the room to assist the resident.

“If the resident forgets to call for help or has to go to the bathroom in the night, that’s the time that they’ll forget to call for help,” says Maxwell.

High-low beds have also been a big part of reducing falls at the home, says Maxwell. These beds can be adjusted to bring the resident closer to the floor — about six inches — when asleep. In the event a resident should fall or stumble out of bed, the risk of injury is reduced.

“If they do decide to get up, they don’t have far to go to get to the floor,” notes Maxwell.

In earlier times, restraints were often used to ensure residents didn’t fall. Like with other homes within the OMNI family, restraints are frowned upon at Village Green and only used when absolutely necessary to prevent injury to the resident or others.

As a last resort to keep residents safe, lap belts may be placed across a resident in a wheelchair, however, Maxwell underscores that the belts are used as a reminder for residents, rather than a restraint, and residents are free to remove them when they wish.

Asked what she felt was the biggest change to reduce the instance of falls in long-term care homes, Maxwell doesn’t hesitate with her response.

“I think it’s the awareness and the education of the staff about the tools that are out there,” she says.