Three Significant Risk Factors For Falls In The Elderly

Hi, it’s Kylie from My Mobile Physio.  At My Mobile Physio we see patients in their own home! It provides ease, comfort and familiarisation for our patients, and we feel we get really good results this way! One thing we have been confronted with more and more lately, is falls at home in the aging population.  I just wanted to share with you today; three significant risk factors that we have found for older people falling in their own home and talk to you about how we can best manage these.

Firstly, if risk factors for falling are not minimized it can be disastrous! Patients can experience a nasty injury, leading to hospitalization and a long recovery process.  Some patients sadly, end up having to become dependent in a nursing home.  Now, none of us want to see this happen to any of out patients!

So, what can we do? Well, It’s quite simple. By addressing some key risk factors in the home, our patient’s falls risk can be reduced drastically, allowing them to stay at home, avoid placement and importantly, continue to enjoy a good quality of life!

Now, our number one risk factor for falling is ‘Not using an appropriate walking aid’.  As we know, some people are at greater risk of falling if they are not using a walking aid! As well, the wrong prescription of a walking aid can be just as disastrous! We are often seeing people who are using a family member’s walking frame, which in many instances, is not suitable and causes more risk to falling.  So, we can provide a detailed assessment for patients and then prescribe the appropriate walking aid at the correct height, and teach them how to use it safely!

A second risk factor we constantly encounter is ‘clutter’ inside homes.  Treating patients in their own home gives us a good understanding of their home environment and it allows us to make recommendations for appropriate changes.  We can directly identify the hazardous risks! We work closely with occupational therapists to ensure a safer, less hazardous home for our patients.

Finally, a very big problem in the older population is their reduced balance and
unsteadiness whilst walking.  Many older patients we see are initially quite unsteady on their feet.  Often they are afraid of falling and as a result remain inactive and immobile.  At MMP we are very passionate about addressing patients balance as part of all our rehab programs.  We can incorporate their home environment into the prescription of exercises to allow them to stay active safely and improve their balance.  We have found patients tend to be more compliant with doing their exercises when we have prescribed them specific to their familiar surroundings.

So, these 3 risk factors are something we come across quite often, and I just wanted to share them with you and how we can help.  If you have a patient or even a friend or family member who you feel is at risk of falling, we are very happy to chat with you to see how we can best help them.  We’d love to hear your thoughts.  Call us on 0420986336 or email us at admin@ydnnprm7au.wpdns.site

Thanks for watching and we look forward to hearing from you!