One out of every three patients a physician cares for, over the age of 65 years, will fall this year. Many physicians will have patients that die from these falls. Many of those patients will suffer serious injuries. Most of these patients will live in fear of another fall and the fear alone will not only change the lives of the patients forever but, will also contribute to another fall.
These are the facts:
Because of our rehab focus, Home Therapy has developed a serious passion about the issue of falls. The fact that we deliver our services, primarily, in the homes of the patient puts us in a unique position to address fall prevention.
The result of our passion is Safe Steps for Seniorssm, a multi-component program we developed based on many months of research of the literature and existing programs in the U.S. and Canada.
In recent years, research has demonstrated that the most effective prevention tactics are multi-component interventions that address both personal and environmental risk factors (Stevens JA. Falls among older adults – risk factors and prevention strategies. In Falls Free: Promoting a National Falls Prevention Action Plan. Washington, DC: The National Council on Aging: 2005).
For each patient, the physician will receive a Safe Steps Report that includes 1) a Fall Risk Profile; 2) Safer Home Assessment Report and intervention plan; 3) Relevant screening results; 4) Medication Alert if necessary and 5) Safe Steps Plan of Action.
The benefits of the Safe Steps program go beyond fall prevention. If embraced by the patient, caregiver and other health care providers, the Safe Steps can:
Please call us at 512-637-1550 or 800-865-6487 for more information or if we can begin to implement the Safe Steps with one of your patients.