Accidents Among the Elderly in Nursing Homes Essay

Introduction

Nursing homes mostly host the aged who mostly face mobility problems, and most of them are usually on wheelchairs or other forms of machines that help in their movement (Alvarez et al., 2016; Basic & Hartwell, 2015). Accidents are prone to happen in the nursing homes, and thus it becomes important to deal with such problems, which can worsen the condition of the aged.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Nursing homes are important places where the aged get to stay and have their needs met through care is given by professionals (Buckinx et al., 2018; Crow et al., 2018). Observation, in this case, can be done through the nursing home. This gives credence to the study of the susceptibility of the aged to accidents and if possible finds out the number that has occurred in the past month or a span of three to four months among other periods.

Accidents in the nursing home are quite dangerous to the wellbeing of the aged. Most of the accidents are associated with falls happening among the aged population. Such falls lad to dangerous complications or injuries to the patients as their bones are not as strong and thus they may get broken in the process (. The falls and thus accidents bring about various injuries that may be quiet serious including fractures, injuries on the different body parts particularly the head and the limbs among others. Up to five percent of the elderly live in nursing homes and twenty percent of the injuries happening in them. This is an alarming number considering that there are caregivers in place to ensure the safety of the elderly.

Impact of Accidents on Elderly

The impact of such accidents among the elderly in the different settings and particularly in nursing homes brings about an increase in cost in the care of the elderly to both the family and the government. Such falls are known to cause mortality among the elderly and further complications, which further increase the cost of treatment of the elderly patients Fahlstrom, G., Kamwendo, K., Forsberg, J., & Bodin, 2018; Hanlon et al., 2018; Johnell et al., 2017). Moreover, the aged have reduced mobility when they acquire more injuries and may be affected negatively when such injuries occur near or on the head.

Significance

It is quite important to note on the prevalence of falls that have sometimes led to mortality among the aged. The study is significant to nursing, as it will help in dealing with the falls among other accidents and their causes about the conditions of the aged together with the setting they are in (Petersen et al., 2018). Determining the various causes and prevention measures becomes important in nursing particularly in dealing with care-giving to the elderly population.

Proposed Solution

The use of evidence-based approaches particularly the prevention of falls will further be investigated and delved into as a solution. The proposed solution involves evaluating all the elderly patients and determining their various treatments together with carrying out a cross-section study regarding the cause of the accidents and further ensuring that the elderly are monitored particularly in their movements. Moreover, railings among other safety measures will be taken, and hospital among other care settings advised to consider the different appliances used by the patients together with educating them on how to guide the elderly through railings and using technology to increase the safety of the elderly patients and even the aged who are at home. Ensuring that nurses and caregivers in nursing homes with other establishment are trained in dealing with older people and ensuring that negligence in handling them is reduced greatly. Moreover, the families at home having older adults should further be given more knowledge on how to handle them to prevent avoidable circumstances like accidents that lead to injury.

References

Alvarez, B. F., Del, P.-C. B., Del, P.-C. J., Alfonso-Rosa, R. M., Sanudo, C. B., & Rogers, M. E. (January 01, 2016). Factors Associated with the Risk of Falls of Nursing Home Residents Aged 80 or Older. RehabilitatioNursing: : the Official Journal of the Association of Rehabilitation Nurses, 41, 1.) https://doi.org/10.1002/rnj.229

Basic, David, & Hartwell, Tabitha J. (2015). Falls in hospital and new placement in a nursing home among older people hospitalized with acute illness. Dove Medical Press, doi: 10.2147/CIA.S90296

Buckinx, F., Croisier, J.-L., Reginster, J.-Y., Lenaerts, C., Brunois, T., Rygaert, X., Petermans, J., ... Bruyere, O. (January 01, 2018). Prediction of the Incidence of Falls and Deaths Among Elderly Nursing Home Residents: The SENIOR Study. Journal of the American Medical Directors Association, 19, 1, 18-24. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jamda.2017.06.014

Crow, R. S., Batsis, J. A., Crow, R. S., Bruce, M. L., Bartels, S. J., Batsis, J. A., Crow, R. S., ... Pidgeon, D. (March 01, 2018). Frailty Versus Stopping Elderly Accidents, Deat, s and Injuries Initiative Fall Risk Score: Ability to Predict Future Falls. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 66, 3, 577-583. https://doi.org/10.1111/jgs.15275

Fahlstrom, G., Kamwendo, K., Forsberg, J., & Bodin, L. (June 01, 2018). Fall prevention by nursing assistants among community-liviolder adultsple.A randomizedsed controlled trial. Scandinavian Journal of Caring Sciences, 32, 2, 575-585. https://doi.org/10.1111/scs.12481

Hanlon, J. T., Zhao, X., Naples, J. G., Aspinall, S. L., Perera, S., Nace, D. A., Greenspan, S. L., ... Greenspan, S. L. (June 01, 2017). Central Nervous System Medication Burden and Serious Falls in Older Nursing Home Residents. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 65, 6, 1183-1189. https://doi.org/10.1111/jgs.14759

Johnell, K., Jonasdottir, B. G., Fastbom, J., Danielsson, B., Borg, N., & Salmi, P. (April 01, 2017). Psychotropic drugs and the risk of fall injuriehospitalizationsons and mortality among older adults. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 32, 4, 414-420. https://doi.org/10.1002/gps.4483

Petersen, J. D., Siersma, V. D., Christensen, R. D., Storsveen, M. M., Nielsen, C. T., & Waldorff, F. B. (January 01, 2018). The risk of fall accidents for home dwellers with dementia-A register- and population-based case-control study. Alzheimer's & DementiAmsterdamdam, Netherlands), 10, 421-428. HYPERLINK "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dadm.2018.05.004