Research Approaches to the Prevention and Protection of Patient Falls

Details

• Personal Author:
  Bloswick, Donald S. ; Merry, Andrew ; Morse, Janice
• Description:
  Since the 1970s, patient falls and, in particular, patient injuries from falls have been a concern to acute-care hospitals, rehabilitation centers, and long-term care institutions. It is estimated that annually "somewhere between 700,000 and 1,000,000 people in the United States fall in hospitals" (Ganz et al., 2013, p. 1). Approximately 5.1%* experienced a major injury; 137,255-196,078 patients per year received a major injury, such as a fracture or major head injury. In the last five decades, the practice and research approaches to the problem of preventing patients from falling have changed dramatically. Falls were first considered a normal consequence of aging, a random event, or an unavoidable accident. But today, patient falls are considered both predictable and preventable. Despite various approaches to fall intervention and advances in technology, patient fall rates have not decreased significantly. Fall injuries have become the anathema of the health-care industry. Here, in Sections 20.1 through 20.5, we describe and summarize the problem of patient falls. We examine the changes in fall interventions that have occurred over time and discuss the present approaches to fall intervention. In Sections 20.6 and 20.7, we discuss advances in biomedical and ergonomic approaches to fall intervention research and how they affect patient care. In particular, we present current biomechanical and ergonomic research to facilitate understanding patient ingress, egress, and in-bed movements as they contribute to fall potential, research approaches, and patient safety. We present slip/fall issues related to the design of bathrooms in Section 20.8 and a summary of the chapter in Section 20.9. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Accidental Falls Accidents Health Care Facilities Workforce And Services Occupational Health Safety
• Keywords:
  Fall Protection Falls Health Care Facilities Injury Prevention Patient Handling
• ISBN:
  9781482217148
• Publisher:
  CRC Press
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Chapter
• Place as Subject:
  OSHA Region 8 ; Utah
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  28 pdf pages
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20067356
• Citation:
  Fall prevention and protection: principles, guidelines, and practices. Hsiao H, ed. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2016 Oct; :341-367
• Editor(s):
  Hsiao H
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2017
• Performing Organization:
  University of Utah
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  20050701
• Source Full Name:
  Fall prevention and protection: principles, guidelines, and practices
• End Date:
  20280630
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:d24eefe6ca7e72e882c1ca56c850cd0b15278772377761c300182e9c13a2b229b17140de3983fd521af9285b2328026be45288dd704a99c9efabd96ed22422f2
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/230716/cdc_230716_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 386.75 KB ]