Prevention of Fall in Adult Patients

Running Head: Prevention of Fall in Adult Patients
How Can The Risk Of Fall Be Reduce In
Adult Patients
Essay
System04104
2/23/2020

Prevention of Fall in Adult Patients
1
How Can Risk Of Fall Be Reduce In Adult Patients
Falls in-patient can be considered as a serious cause that affects the wellbeing of patients.
Falls can be resulted in serious threats for the patient which can lead to physical and
emotional injuries and it also increases the duration of stays in hospitals. Falls in-patient can
leads to poor quality of life and it must be care by healthcare professionals during providing
treatment to patients. The essay helps to understand various causes of fall in adult patients in
a healthcare organisation. The essay also helps to assess various risk factors, which are
responsible for fall in adult patients. It has been discussed in the essay that how various
alternative approaches are available to avoid fall in-patient to ensure a better wellbeing. The
objective of this essay is to analyse various available interventions strategies to reduce the
incidents of falls in adult patients in acute care hospitals.
According to NHS hospital, 30-50% of falls resulted in some physical injuries and fractures
for patients (Hiyama and Okada, 2018). It has been also noticeable that no fall is harmless
because every falls almost leads to injury for the adult patient. However, it can be said that
multidisciplinary approach of nurses and healthcare staffs can reduce the numbers of fall
incidents in the healthcare organisations. Falls among patients in any healthcare organisation
most frequently reported and it is really a serious concern for the patient’s point of view.
Every day in the world, millions of patients fall in the healthcare organisation and it leads to
small injury to serious injury for more than 30%-50% of the adult patents. However, injured
patients do not only increase the work of nurses and healthcare staffs rather they injured
themselves in some serious manner. However, it has been found that preventing fall of patient
is really a tough challenge for the healthcare professionals. It can only be controlled or
reduced if the healthcare professionals assess the conditions in right ways. There are varieties
of toolkit, strategies can be used to reduce the fall of patients in healthcare organisation and
these strategies, and toolkit can only be applied through research and quality assessment
techniques during healthcare practices.
The successful prevention plan for reducing the number of cases of falls in healthcare
organisation needs research based risk factors that are applied in the unit of care. Rao (2010)
mentioned in his article that it is the responsibility of healthcare professional to continuously
give attention to environmental hazards for all patients and stop the number of cases relate to
patients fall. To prevent the fall incident, it is the responsibility of the healthcare
organisations and the professionals who care the patient need to prepare a complete list that

Prevention of Fall in Adult Patients
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what medications and supplements are used for health recovery of patient (Votruba, Graham,
Wisinski, and Syed, 2016). It has been observed that side effects of medications and heavy
doses of medicines are some of the major causes of patient fall in the organisation. If a
healthcare professional cares about these things and makes sure that which medicine can be
given or which medicine cannot be given to the patient, the incidents of fall in adult patients
can easily be prevented (Haines, Bennell, Osborne, and Hill, 2014). The doctor can weaning
off those medicines which can make the patient tired or effect the thinking process of the
patient must be avoided and this step of healthcare professionals can also help to reduce the
number of fall cases. A healthcare professional can note down the detailed information about
the treatment of patient and care about the feelings of patient that when and how patient feel
after the diagnosis of illness. The healthcare professionals should also consider the prior
incidents of fall and should analyse why patient is falling and adopt the prevention strategies
to avoid fall complaints of patients (Ungar, et. al., 2013).
It has been also noted that when a patient does not move his or her body, he or she can
suddenly note the incident of dis-balance in the body during standing out from his or her bed.
Physical activities can play a crucial role in prevention of fall activities (Votruba, Graham,
Wisinski, and Syed, 2016). The doctor should promote walking, water walkouts, or tai chi-
that can be good exercise for the patient and help them to make a balance of their body while
walking on the floor. However, the doctor should promote the physical activities in patients
to reduce the number of cases of fall. However, an adult patient needs to carefully adopt the
exercise program and participate in every exercise that has been suggested by the doctors to
avoid the cases of falls during diagnosis period in the hospitals. Another thing that is crucial
to understand that physical exercise during unit care not only help to reduce the number of
fall cases rather it also helps the patients to immediately recover the good health (Tzeng and
Yin, 2015). Exercise helps the patients to get the right balance of the body and strengthen the
muscle strength as well. The doctor can also suggest the patient to think about the shoes and
footwear that patient wear during the treatment. Type of footwear and shoes play a crucial
role in prevention of fall incidents in hospitals. It has been noted that high heels and floppy
sleepers of patient or slick soles of footwear are the major causes of fall in patients
(Baumhauer, et. al., 2018). In such a scenario, avoid these type of footwear can help the
patient to reduce the cases of fall. Therefore, it is essential in healthcare organisations that
healthcare professionals care about the shoes and footwear of patient and suggest them to
wear sensible shoes or footwear. It is also noticeable that sensible shoes generally reduce the

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joint pain that is also a major cause of fall in patients in healthcare organisations (Hempel, et.
al., 2013).
The awareness about the causes of fall in healthcare organisation is essential to know for
patients. In such a scenario, the healthcare professional can play a crucial role in raising
awareness among patients that how they can reduce the chances of fall (Votruba, Graham,
Wisinski, and Syed, 2016). The healthcare professional needs to spread awareness and related
information to every level of clinical and non-clinical staffs. They should be encouraged to
use safety precautions into the full continuum of patient care and education. The staff should
be educated in the way that how they can provide effective and efficient care for the patients
and how they are accountable for patient safety and security (Tzeng and Yin, 2015).
Education and motivation to the staffs can help the organisation to reduce the chances of falls
in patients and also ensure a healthy and safe life for the patients during healthcare services.
However, for this purpose the organisation needs to adopt a robust change management effort
that bring every staff of the organisation together and motivate them to work for the safety
and security of patients and reduce the number of fall cases in the organisation. Change
management is one of the ways of bringing change in the organisation that helps the staffs,
professionals to adopt new methodologies of work, thus productivity can be improved, and
safety and security of patients can be determined in the healthcare organisation (DuPree,
Fritz-Campiz and Musheno, 2014).
Prevention of patient falls in healthcare organisation is really a challenge for the healthcare
professionals (Knox, 2018). The healthcare organisation can also form an interdisciplinary
team for the prevention of injury cases that occur because of patient fall. Reducing injuries
from fall of patients can be the responsibility of everyone. It is the responsibility of every
member of the organisation such as nurses, staffs, physicians, environmental services, patient
advocacy etc. all are important for the purpose of reducing the incidents of patient fall in a
healthcare organisation (Stevens and Phelan, 2013). However, it is the responsibility of
parents and family members as well to care about the patients at home and provide them a
better environment and conditions under which chances of fall can be reduced for the
patience (DuPree, Fritz-Campiz and Musheno, 2014). The parents needs to care about the
patients and must ensure their health and wellbeing. According to a research conducted by an
international body of research, it has been found that generally healthcare policies and
interventions are effective and cost-effective in which few broad categories considered by the