Reducing Falls and Fall-Related Injuries in Acutely and Critically Ill Patients

Falls in critical care: a local review to identify incidence and risk

“…Other factors such as whether interventions to help with the prevention of falls, for instance, wearing appropriate footwear when mobilizing high dependency patients and the use of bed rails when patients are in bed, would be informative for future reporting. Patients with a history of falls are known to be at an elevated risk of falling again (Flanders et al , ; Halm and Quigley, ); however, this risk factor was not identified from the local incident reporting system along with other risk factors specific to critical care such as medications and delirium (Halm and Quigley, ). This reporting deficit signifies risk factors associated with a fall in critical care, may not have been identified, limiting the data shown.…”

“…The least common unanticipated causes of falls include faints, fits and an acute illness (Flanders et al, 2009), such as a fall during recovery from an anaesthetic (NPSA, 2007). Patients who have a history of falling are more at risk of falling (Flanders et al, 2009;Halm and Quigley, 2011) and risk factors such as medications and delirium have been identified as specific critical care risk factors (Halm and Quigley, 2011). Critical care patients have been viewed as at risk of a falls, unless the patient is in a coma (Halm and Quigley, 2011).…”

“…In the hospital setting, patient falls are often reported as the most common adverse event (Halm and Quigley, ; Patman et al , ). In 2006, the National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) reported over 1260 falls in one average size acute hospital every year in England and Wales (NPSA, ).…”

The effect of an animation movie for inpatient fall prevention: a pilot study in an acute hospital

“…Unfortunately, we did not ask the patients about their cognitive function in our research, but Haines et al suggested that in estimating the effect of interventions using animation and other multimedia education, patients' cognitive function should be investigated. As well as follow-ups by health professionals after watching the DVD, feedback from teaching is important to emphasize the effect of education in other studies [20]. Our method involved making the patients watch the animation but not assessing whether they understood or not.…”

“…For these interventions, educational efforts can be important, as can effective measures of informing patients and caregivers of fall risk and preventive strategies [15,[17][18][19][20]. In our hospital, we had also implemented similar long-term multidisciplinary measures including use of the modified fall risk assessment scale originally generated by the Japanese Nursing Association [21], environment improvement, use of alarm devices, and an explanatory leaflet for patients and families regarding fall risk and adequate preventive measures; however, both fall and injury rates remained unchanged.…”