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Tag: Fall Prevention

How Does Elder Care Identify and Address Fall Risks for Seniors?

Posted on by Craig Bass
Elder Care in Henderson NV
Elder Care in Henderson NV

Aging adults are at unfortunately high risk of experiencing falls at home. Once a senior does fall, they are twice as likely to experience another fall. And if that person avoided serious injury the first time around, they may not be as lucky the next time a fall occurs. That’s why having as much help as possible, including from elder care providers, is an excellent way for family caregivers to help reduce fall risks for the seniors they love.

Elder Care Providers Get to Know Their Clients

When caregivers start working with aging adults, they get to know their clients and their needs very quickly. Individual health issues, ailments, and requirements are a huge part of finding the right solutions for any given situation. Home care providers genuinely care about the people they are helping and they want to make sure that they understand the challenges that aging adults are facing.

Assessing the Environment

Another big factor when identifying and addressing fall risks involves the environment itself. Is the lighting adequate? Are there grab bars wherever necessary? Loose flooring, home modifications, and other factors are all important to consider and caregivers do so as they assess what might be contributing to safety issues.

Caregivers Make Recommendations

After gathering information, home care providers might make recommendations to seniors and to family members. These recommendations are based on observations and experience helping other aging adults to be safe at home and avoid falls as much as possible. Some of the recommendations might require more effort than others, like adding a ramp in place of stairs. But others, like making it easier for seniors to access mobility aids, are simpler to implement quickly.

Help Seniors Follow Doctors’ Orders

It isn’t always easy to follow doctors’ orders, especially when those orders are frustrating. That means that lots of seniors make choices that aren’t necessarily the right ones, especially if they do want to avoid a fall. Elder care professionals are there to remind seniors about the various small things they can do, like exercising and eating regularly, to stay healthy and to avoid a fall.

Keep Family Caregivers Informed

Family caregivers are often overwhelmed by everything that goes into caregiving. With the help of elder care providers, caregivers are able to have a better idea what their senior’s needs are, especially around fall prevention. This can be a huge help when it comes to putting plans in place to help aging adults to avoid falls and the injuries that can result from a fall at home.

Falls and the injuries that falls can cause are preventable for seniors, but it’s a lot easier to do when there is experienced assistance available. Identifying risk factors and safety concerns is the first step in developing a plan and elder care providers can help family caregivers to do just that. Ultimately, all of this works toward helping aging adults to be more confident, independent, and safe at home, which is what everyone involved wants.

Reference
https://www.webmd.com/osteoporosis/guide/fall-prevention-strategies

If you are considering elder care in Henderson, NV, for an aging loved one, please contact the caring staff at Golden Heart Senior Care of Summerlin. 702-800-4616.

Do You Know What to Do if Your Senior Falls?

Posted on by Craig Bass
24-Hour Home Care in Henderson NV
24-Hour Home Care in Henderson NV

Hearing that your elderly family member has experienced a fall is terrifying. Do you know what you need to do afterward to support her? This information can help you to make the right choices following a fall, including enlisting the help of 24-hour home care during recovery and beyond.

Falls and Aging Adults

When a senior falls, she’s unfortunately highly likely to experience a serious injury because of that fall. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that over three million aging adults are treated for falls in the ER every year. The CDC also reports that older adults who fall once are twice as likely to have another fall, and that second fall may be far more serious than the first.

Determine if She’s Injured and Alert Her Doctor

If your elderly family member does experience a fall, take a few moments to thoroughly evaluate the situation. Check for obvious injuries and try to let her get up by herself. That isn’t to be cruel, either. Letting her get up by herself allows you both to see if she’s injured more seriously than you realize. You need to get her doctor involved in the situation, just to verify that she’s truly not injured.

Look for a Cause Behind the Fall

Understanding what caused your senior’s fall is crucial, because you need to do everything you can to prevent another one. Was your senior dizzy or experiencing other health issues? Did she trip? Or was the room too dark for her to see where she was going? Get to the bottom of the situation so that you can figure out what you can do for prevention.

Do a Thorough Safety Sweep

One way to get more information is to do a thorough safety sweep of your senior’s home. This means assessing what home modifications her house needs, including grab bars, and making a list of what isn’t as safe as it could be. You may need to do this a few times to make sure you don’t miss something.

Put Solutions in Place to Prevent Future Falls

After you put together a list of safety changes your senior’s home needs, it’s time to implement them. Install those grab bars, remove loose carpeting on stairways, and increase lighting throughout the house. If having more assistance is what your elderly family member needs, sooner is far better than later.

Consider 24-hour Home Care Services

Senior care professionals understand how vital it is to keep your senior as safe as possible at home. 24-hour home care can assist your elderly family member with mobility issues, overnight concerns, and ensuring that she’s eating healthy meals consistently throughout the day. All of these tasks can help your senior to avoid another fall, while also ensuring that she’s safe and that her quality of life is as high as possible.

Helping your elderly family member to avoid a fall is a huge part of her overall care plan. As your elderly family member’s situation continues to change, update her plan to ensure that you’re accounting for all of the possibilities when it comes to preventing falls.

Source
https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/prevent-falls-and-fractures

If you are considering 24-hour home care in Henderson, NV, for an aging loved one, please contact the caring staff at Golden Heart Senior Care of Summerlin. 702-800-4616.

Nighttime Fall Prevention for Senior Citizens

Posted on by Craig Bass
Home Care in Summerlin NV
Home Care in Summerlin NV

You may already know that senior citizens have a higher risk of falling than younger adults. However, did you know that many senior citizens have a higher risk of falling during the nighttime hours than during the daytime? There are many different reasons for this. However, there are also many ways that you and home care providers can work together to help with nighttime fall prevention for your elderly loved one.

Proper Bedding Placement

One of the reasons why senior citizens often fall during the night is because they trip over their bedding. For example, if your elderly loved one needs to get up to use the bathroom at night, they might trip over the edge of their blanket and fall in their bedroom. This could lead to a serious injury. It is important that your elderly loved one’s bedding isn’t stuck under their mattress, so their legs or feet don’t get stuck in the blanket when they try to get up. It is also important they don’t have any blankets on the floor, as well. You or home care providers can go into your elderly loved one’s bedroom each night, before they go to bed, to ensure the blankets are where they should be.

Good Lighting

Another way that you or an elder care provider can help to prevent nighttime falls for your elderly loved one is by ensuring there is good lighting in their bedroom and house. Improper or low lighting can prevent your elderly loved one from seeing where they are walking during the night. If they can’t see well, it could cause them to trip on carpeting, cords, or other things that are in the walkway. You or home care providers can check often to ensure each light in the house has working bulbs that are bright enough for your elderly loved one to see.

Better Flooring

If you are trying to help prevent nighttime falls for your elderly loved one, you should check on the flooring in their house. For example, if they have a lot of runners, lifted carpets, or loose rugs, these could all be fall hazards. It is crucial that someone ensures these are properly stapled or taped down to help prevent falls. If there are any loose rugs, you could also replace those with slip-resistant rugs.

Conclusion

These are some of the nighttime fall prevention tips for senior citizens. As a family caregiver, hopefully, you can work with home care providers to help take care of these things in your elderly loved one’s home. By doing so, you can significantly reduce the risk of them falling at night.

Sources
https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/healthy-aging/in-depth/fall-prevention/art-20047358

If you are considering home care in Summerlin, NV, for an aging loved one, please contact the caring staff at Golden Heart Senior Care of Summerlin. 702-800-4616.

Stop and Look at Safety Issues Before Your Mom Falls

Posted on by Craig Bass

In one year, an average of three million older adults seeks emergency care following a fall. Twenty percent of those falls cause serious head injuries or bone fractures. More than 300,000 of those bone fractures involve the hip.

Reducing your mom’s risk of falling is crucial when she lives alone. You need to stop and look at these common safety issues and address them sooner rather than later.

Cluttered Rooms and Floors

Clutter is not only a fire hazard, but it also increases the risk of a fall. Those books that don’t fit on the bookshelf get stacked on the floor. It seems reasonable until you’re walking down the hallway and catch your toe on them and trip.

Poor Furniture Placement

Your mom loves home design shows, and she loves the living room seating arrangement that has everyone facing each other. The problem is that the paths out of the room are now narrow. She’s consistently hitting her shins on the coffee table. You worry that one of these days she’ll hit her shin hard enough to fall and injure herself.

Loose Stair Rails

Stairs must have handrails for your mom’s safety. The rails have to be securely affixed to the wall or posts. They need to be smooth and splinter-free. Check them periodically for splinters and loose screws.

Low Lighting

Lights on stairs, in rooms, and hallways have to be bright enough. LED lighting is bright and energy-efficient. It will lower your mom’s electricity bills and provide plenty of illumination to every corner of a room and entry.

Slippery Flooring

Flooring in kitchens and bathrooms is often linoleum or tile. When those surfaces get wet, the risk of a slip and fall is high. Add grab bars in the bathroom, too. Grab bars give your mom something to hold onto as she steps into and out of the shower or tub.

Newer vinyl flooring is waterproof. Plus, the surface of this flooring can be textured to give it a slip-free surface even if it’s wet. As vinyl flooring comes in snap-together planks, it’s also quick to install and doesn’t need glue or nails.

Hire Caregivers to Assist Your Mom With Ambulation

Call a home care agency and ask about a home assessment. If caregivers can help her with ambulation, it’s important to hire them. Caregivers keep your mom safe and make sure she has everything she needs. Learn more by talking to a specialist.

 

If you are considering caregivers in Summerlin, NV for an aging loved one, please contact the caring staff at Golden Heart Senior Care of Summerlin. 702-800-4616.

Does Your Elderly Parent Have a Higher Risk of Falling?

Posted on by Craig Bass
Senior care in Summerlin NV
Senior Care in Summerlin NV

Have you worried about your elderly parent falling? Maybe you can’t be around enough to keep an eye on them, but you worry about them every day. If this is the case, the first thing that you might want to do is hire senior care providers to look after your elderly parent. The other thing that you might want to do is to figure out whether your elderly parent has a higher risk of falling. If they do, you can talk to their doctor and work with the senior care providers to help them stay safer.

Getting Lightheaded

One of the risk factors for falling is feeling lightheaded. How often does your elderly parent feel lightheaded? Are they often having to sit down because they feel this way? Does your elderly parent need to hold onto something when they stand up because they feel lightheaded? If these things are happening, then your elderly parent does have a higher risk of falling. Feeling lightheaded often should be checked out by their doctor. Senior care providers can offer immediate assistance if your senior feels lightheaded when walking, standing, going up stairs, etc.

Fell in the Past

Has your elderly parent already fallen in the past? If this is the case, they may have a higher risk of falling again. The main reason for this is because many senior citizens who fall often get scared they will fall again. This fear can cause them to be unsteady on their feet causing them to fall again.

Taking Medications

How many medications is your elderly parent taking? If they are on 4 or more medications, the chances of them experiencing dizziness due to medication side effects is much greater than if they were taking fewer medications. Is your elderly parent taking a medication that has dizziness or tiredness on the list of side effects? If this is the case, your elderly parent’s risk of falling will be higher.

Lack of Physical Activity

Does your elderly parent get very minimal physical activity? The more your elderly parent sits around without moving, the more tense and tight their body is going to be. This stiffness could make it difficult for your elderly parent to walk. When they try to walk, they may have a higher risk of falling.

Conclusion

These are some of the things that might increase your elderly parent’s risk of falling. Now that you know this, you can determine more of what your parent’s fall risk might be. If they have a higher risk of falling, you should make sure they have senior care providers around more often to help prevent falls.

Sources
https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/prevent-falls-and-fractures#:~:text=Scientists%20have%20linked%20several%20personal,sitting%20(called%20postural%20hypotension).

If you or an aging loved on is considering senior care in Summerlin, NV, please contact the caring staff at Golden Heart Senior Care of Summerlin. 702-800-4616.