Introduction to Fall Prevention
The home should be a place where a person feels healthy, comfortable, and safe. People want to move about freely within their homes and to feel in control of their daily routines. This is true, even if a person has a disease or condition that puts him or her at risk for falling.
When you care for a person who is at risk for falling, it is important that their home is safe and free of the obstacles and barriers that can cause a fall.
Risk for Falling
- The risk for falling is much higher in an adult over the age of 65. Changes due to aging affect a person’s balance, strength, coordination, and agility.
- Persons who are tired, weak and dizzy from the effects of chronic diseases such as cancer, arthritis, and heart disease are also at risk.
- Diseases of the nervous system, such as Parkinson’s disease, ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) or Multiple Sclerosis make it hard to walk normally, which can lead to tripping or losing one’s balance.
- Persons with diabetes sometimes lose feeling in the feet and legs, placing them at risk for falls.
- The effects of certain medicines can cause dizziness, making it easy to lose balance.
Fall Injuries
Too often a fall results in serious injury. People who fall often suffer broken bones (fractures) and sometimes serious internal bleeding. Know the risks of the person you care for. For example, does the person have osteoporosis (bone loss), making their bones more brittle and easy to break? Does the person take a “blood thinning” medicine which affects how their blood clots? If so, a fall could cause serious bleeding.
Make the Home Safe
One way to reduce the chance of a person falling is to help them make their home safe. This begins with a Home Safety Review. This lesson will give you step by step tips for how to find safety risks in the home and what to do to make the home a safer place to move about.
Here is Jasmine’s Story:
My best friend is 72 and lives alone. I visit her each day just to check and see how she is doing. Her doctor warned her that because of her age and having bad arthritis in her knees and hips, she could easily fall. She asked me to help her. The doctor gave her a safety list of ways to make her home safer. So, my friend and I took the list and walked through every room in her home. To her surprise we found several ways to make her home safer. I called a friend who is a handyman to help us with the bigger changes, like putting in better lighting in her hallway and grab bars in her bathroom. But most of the changes, my friend and I did together. So far, no falls and I think my friend feels a bit more at ease as she walks around her house.