An Ounce of Prevention

Unless you are a caregiver for a frail friend, parent or grandparent, you might not spend a lot of time thinking about matters of balance and the cost and consequences of falls. But the numbers may surprise you. In the elderly, falls are the leading cause of injury-related deaths. They are more common than stroke (3 in 10 over seventy fall each year); cause over 90% of broken hips; and account for 16 percent of all Emergency Department visits and almost 7 percent of all hospitalizations.

In its 2006 Massachusetts State Injury Prevention Plan, the Mass. Department of Public Health reported that in 2004 Mass. hospitals reported more than 25,000 falls-related admissions. These 25,000 were more than 50% of all injury related discharges. By contrast, motor vehicle injuries requiring inpatient care totaled only 4,532. Total hospital charges for these fall-related injuries exceeded $300 million and Emergency Room care totaled more than $48 million. If you are in the health care delivery system - and whether your concern is ER back-ups, hospital bed availability, or escalating costs - you should be thinking about falls prevention.

Yes, prevention, because there is now evidence-based research that indicates that the causes of many falls are identifiable and the rates of falls can be lowered with appropriate risk assessment and intervention.

Home care agencies, which see primarily, home-bound, chronically-ill and frail elders, are increasingly becoming active in implementing falls prevention programs. This can mean assessing everything from a patient's muscle strength and home environment, to the medications they take and their impact on balance.

The Home Care Alliance will be supporting these efforts, including dissemination of best practices throught the industry, with the help of a grant from the Boston Foundation. Other resources supporting these efforts can be found on the Healthy Aging page of the National Council on Aging, which in 2005 launched a national Falls Free effort.

Can these efforts make a difference and actually bring those numbers down for Massachusetts? It's too soon to tell. But there is no doubt, the home care industry is dedicated to the effort.