Falls

Defination Of Falls:

Falls is an event which result in a person coming to rest on the ground or another lower level with or without loss of consciousness or injury.

Incidance Of Falls In Elderly:

•                Falls are the sixth leading cause of death in older adults.
• About 25% of person aged 70 years .It increase to 35% for people aged 75 years and older .
• Between one –half and two third of institutionalized elderly people experience fall every years .
• Falls occur approximately 25 to 33% of community dwelling older adult 50 to 67% of nursing home resident experience falls.
  

Epidemiology of Falls in the Elderly

From 1992 through 1995, 147 million injury-related visits were made to emergency departments in the United States.1 Falls were the leading cause of external injury, accounting for 24 percent of these visits. Emergency department visits related to falls are more common in children less than five years of age and adults 65 years of age and older. Compared with children, elderly persons who fall are 10 times more likely to be hospitalized and eight times more likely to die as the result of a fall.

Annually, 1,800 falls directly result in death.Approximately 9,500 deaths in older Americans are associated with falls each year.

Elderly persons who survive a fall experience significant morbidity. Hospital stays are almost twice as long in elderly patients who are hospitalized after a fall than in elderly patients who are admitted for another reason.Compared with elderly persons who do not fall, those who fall experience greater functional decline in activities of daily living (ADLs) and in physical and social activities,and they are at greater risk for subsequent institutionalization.

Risk Factors Of Falls:

Falls are often caused by a number of factors. The faller may live with many risk factors for falling and only have problems when another factor appears. As such, management is often tailored to treating the factor that caused the fall, rather than all of the risk factors a patient has for falling. Risk factors may be grouped into intrinsic factors and extrinci factors.

Intrinsic risk factors:

• Age Related changes                                                    

                         Visual  deficts

                          Neurological function

                         Musculoskeletal function

• Diseases (medical problems).

                         Sensory
                         Neurological
                       Musculoskeletal system
                       Cardiovascular disease
                       Gastrointestinal system
                       Metabolic
                       Psychological
                       

• Female sex .

Extrinsic factors:

• Drugs:

      (Such as cardiac medication, CNS depressant, laxative, antihypertensive, Narcotic, Chemotherapy drugs, narcotic and oral hypoglycemic) 

• Environmental
• Improper assistive devices