Prevention of Falls in Elderly Care Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Prevention of Falls in Elderly Care - Essay Example The contributory factors according to the authors have been diverse and complicated. The risk assessment approach is based on the multicomponent risk determination and management strategy. According to Brown et al. (2005) there is a growing body of evidence to suggest that interventions which are effectively intended to prevent fall risk factors among elderly can be more result oriented. However the authors doubt the degree of prevalence of such evidence and its real impact on clinical practices and physical therapy. According to Brown et al, further there is a clear impact of the professional behavioral change on the related outcomes involving fall prevention programs among the elderly. According to a survey carried out by the authors among some physical therapists in Connecticut, USA, almost 91% of the respondents identified environment related risk factors, the gait and physical balance related deficits as the main fall risk factors. At the same time a remarkable feature of the survey was the fact that 82% of the respondents said that modern intervention techniques based on medication were responsible for effective prevention of fall among the elderly. ... The exercise based intervention was recommended to a selected group of participants. Their results showed a greater degree of improvement in the focus group while the control group participants had no any improvement. Yet again the authors admit that there were some significant differences in mobility and strength of participants alone with substantial presence of divergence in balance.According to recent research the risk factors of falls among elderly are not limited to old age only. For example female patients are more likely to have a fall than a mail patient (Barry et al. 2001). In addition to the above there are such factors as low weight, too much of self dependency, psychotropic medication, alcohol abuse, disturbed vision, disorders related to gait, diabetes, physical imbalance and environmental factors. However such extreme courses like hypotension and cognitive impairment cannot be determined with a realistic assessment. For example risk factors involved in falls among elde rly can be basically related to physical disability arising from a variety of persistent weaknesses. Therefore habit forming behaviors might lead to falls that might become a pattern.The consequences of such falls have been identified as both mild and far reaching. For instance the current literature on the subject identifies the severity of falls along with their frequency to investigate the nature of outcomes. Weak bones in the elderly have been identified as one of the major causal factors for relative severity and frequency of falls. Falls that lead to fractures in the proximal femur, are often regarded as severe and mainly attributed to weak bones