BACKGROUND Falls are the leading cause of older adult injuries and injury-related deaths. Until 2004, the growing public health issue of older adult falls received little national attention. To elevate and focus on the issue, the National Council on Aging launched the Falls Free(®) Initiative, a group of national and state agencies working collaboratively to address older adult falls with evide...

BACKGROUND Falls among community-dwelling older adults are a serious public health concern. While evidence-based fall prevention strategies are available, their effective implementation requires broad cross-sector coordination that is beyond the capacity of any single institution or organization. Community groups comprised of diverse stakeholders that include public health, care providers from ...

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY Falls prevention evidence is strong, but little is known about uptake of strategies for people living with dementia (PLWD). This mixed-method systematic review aimed to integrate evidence of falls prevention efficacy with views/experiences of PLWD. DESIGN AND METHODS Eight electronic databases were searched. Inclusion criteria included quantitative or qualitative studies ...

Falls and associated injury and mortality are of increasing concern among aging Americans. Effective fall risk management is a complicated process requiring involvement by both health care professionals and older adults for three related actions: (a) early screening to detect risk factors; (b) prescription of tailored interventions; and (c) implementation of, adherence to, and compliance with t...

A comprehensive fall risk assessment can provide information for effective prevention and intervention measures and reduce falls among hospitalized elderly people. The purpose of this study was to develop a Chinese version of an inpatient fall risk assessment tool and evaluate its validity and reliability.This study employed the Falls Risk for Hospitalised Older People (FRHOP) assessment to con...

We assessed knowledge, attitude, and provision of recommended fall prevention (FP) practices by employees of senior-serving organization and participation in FP practices by at-risk elders. The Washington State Department of Health administered structured telephone surveys to 50 employees and 101 elders in Washington State. Only 38% of employees felt "very knowledgeable" about FP, and a majorit...

BACKGROUND The incidence of falls in the elderly population is difficult to determine and therefore potentially underestimated. Screening algorithms usually have in common that the evaluation is undertaken by trained individuals in a hospital setting. This leads to the inclusion of a high proportion of low-risk people and a waste of resources. It would be advantageous to pretest the individuals...

OLDER ADULT FALLS Falls threaten the independence of adults aged 65 years and older. In the U.S., one in three older adults fall annually, causing significant disability and reduced quality of life (1). The high prevalence of falls, coupled with more than $30 billion in direct medical costs (2) has created a critical need for effective older adult fall prevention programs. As the nation’s publi...

BACKGROUND Despite limited evidence of effectiveness, withdrawal (discontinuation or dose reduction) of high risk medications known as "fall-risk increasing drugs" (FRIDs) is typically conducted as a fall prevention strategy based on presumptive benefit. Our objective is to determine the efficacy of fall-risk increasing drugs (FRIDs) withdrawal on the prevention of falls and fall-related compli...

BACKGROUND When tested in a randomized controlled trial (RCT) of 31,411 patients, the nurse-led 6-PACK falls prevention program did not reduce falls. Poor implementation fidelity (i.e., program not implemented as intended) may explain this result. Despite repeated calls for the examination of implementation fidelity as an essential component of evaluating interventions designed to improve the d...