Injuries and Deaths Resulting from Falls in Healthcare Facilities

PICOT Statement Paper
Student’s Name:
Institutional Affiliation
Date:
Falls in Healthcare Facilities
Background Information
Falls in nursing homes and other healthcare facilities occur repeatedly and frequently. Falls affect approximately 1,800 older people more because of their physical and cognitive impairment (Elnitsky at al., 2014). Older people suffer from fall-related injuries which may lead to their death and survivors of falls occasionally sustain head injuries and hip fractures that put them in wheelchairs and reduce the quality of their lives. Based on practical experience with patients while working in a care facility, the researcher will describe this problem, its impact, significance, interventions, and proposed solution to change practice to reduce this problem.
Problem Statement
Older people experience physiological and cognitive changes which makes them more prone to have fall incidence. Although people have been informed about this issue, the rate of injurious falls continues to increase, primarily because most people do not engage in physical activities as recommended. This is because these individuals have limited motivation which is the major contributor to less involvement in physical activities. According to Parell et al. (2001), the issue here is that after a fall and a severe injury, older people suffer extended length of hospital stay, augmented cost of hospitalization as well as prolonged recovery. Nonetheless, the health care system should educate as well as motivate older adults to involve themselves in physical exercises and activities more frequently and repeatedly.
Purpose of the Change Proposal
While working at Lincoln Glen skilled care facility, the focus of the researcher is on the main problem which is the falls among older people. According to Lincoln Glen Incident Report (2018), “8 fall incidences are reported in January, 7 cases in February, 10 falls in March, 11 in April and it is increased to 14 in the month of May.” In this paper, the researcher insists that physical activities and exercises involvement can play an important role in fall prevention.
PICOT
Population
The population for this study includes 55 patients aged 65-80 who stay in Lincoln Glen Skilled health care facility rehabilitation unit. 40 patients are scheduled for designed activities and exercises for a specific time, and 15 patients are not involved in any physical exercises and will serve as the control experiment. This is because older individuals are at higher risk for falls because of their mental and physiological changes and this can lead to severe injuries and even death among older people. NICE (2013) reports that an estimation that shows that 30 % of 65-year-old adults and 50% of 80-years-old people fall at least once a year.
Intervention
Physical exercises and activities bring about entertainment, health fitness, stability, improve mobility, and create independence. 40 patients (sample) will be involved in physical activities and exercises for 1 hour 5 day/week for three months. Nurses will be required to ensure their involvement in physical activities and monitor them (Wilkinson et al., 2018). Nurses will oversee a 10 minutes nutrition and self-management h...