Hospital Patient Falls: Causes, Prevention Strategies, and APA Format

This assignment focuses on the critical issue of patient falls in healthcare settings. It begins by identifying the common causes of falls, referencing scholarly sources to support the findings. Factors such as muscle weakness, poor vision, underlying health conditions like dementia and low blood pressure, and an unsafe hospital environment are highlighted as significant contributors. The assignment then shifts to prevention strategies, advocating for safety rounds to identify risks, educating patients and their families on fall prevention, identifying high-risk patients, and maintaining a safe hospital environment by ensuring the proper functioning of equipment. The assignment emphasizes the importance of evidence-based practices and proper citation in APA format, demonstrating a commitment to academic rigor in addressing this important healthcare concern.

Module 01 – Written Assignment – Patient Falls Worksheet
Name:
Date:
Complete all of your lesson materials and assigned readings. Make sure that you are focusing on:
● Common Causes of Patient Falls
● Actions to Prevent Falls from Occurring
You should be using complete sentences to answer the questions. Ensure that you are using
correct grammar. In addition, support your answers using your textbook, course materials,
credible internet resources, and scholarly journals. SkyScape is a great suggestion for assistance
in the completion of this assignment. All citations must be in APA format. 1 Point
1. Identify the common causes of patient falls. 2 Points
According to DeGrauw, Annest, Stevens, Xu, & Coronado (2016), an aging population in the
hospital is at risk of falling due to their state of immobility and body function. The common
causes of this falls include impairments such as muscle weakness and poor vision, sever health
conditions such as dementia and low blood pressure and diseases that affect balance like
labyrinthitis (Mean, 2014). Moreover, inefficient hospital environment predisposes patients to

Module 01 – Written Assignment – Patient Falls Worksheet
fall. A poor hospital environment planning and structures predispose clients to injuries. Sound
leadership will ensure that the environment is safe for their clients.
2. Define and describe actions to prevent falls from occurring. 2 Points
Introduction of safety rounds in the wards whereby nurses should do safety rounds to check
the possibility of falls. This will lead to early identification and thus, their prevention.
Secondly, education of patient and family about patient safety should be initiated. The patient
and the family should be educated on ways to prevent falls from occurring (Wongrakpanich,
Danji, Lipsitz, & Berry, 2019).
Identification of high-risk patients in the wards should be made since high-risk patients are at
a higher risk of fall from their beds. They should, therefore, be identified and taken care of to
prevent them from falling.
A safer hospital environment should also be maintained for patients to ensure that faulty
hospital equipment such as beds and crutches should be identified, repaired and replaced. This
will reduce injuries to patients within the hospital environment.

Module 01 – Written Assignment – Patient Falls Worksheet
References
DeGrauw, X., Annest, J. L., Stevens, J. A., Xu, L., & Coronado, V. (2016). Unintentional
injuries treated in hospital emergency departments among persons aged 65 years and
older, United States, 2006–2011. Journal of safety research, 56, 105-109.
Mean, C. (2014). Factors Associated with Falls in Elderly Adults. Ham's Primary Care
Geriatrics E-Book: A Case-Based Approach, 236.
Wongrakpanich, S., Danji, K., Lipsitz, L., & Berry, S. (2019). STOP-FALLING: A simple
checklist tool for fall prevention in a nursing facility. Journal of the American Medical
Directors Association, 20(7), 916-918.