The National Council on Aging has declared Tuesday, September 22, 2009 National
Falls Awareness Prevention Day. Locally Home Care of Rochester (HCR), a certified
home health agency, is quickly making Rochester a Center of Excellence in Falls
Prevention through patient risk assessment, education and outreach.
According
to Judy Daniel, program manager of therapeutic services at HCR, falling is not
a normal part of aging, nor is pain normal. "A fall is just the tip of the
iceberg, an indication that something else is going on," she said, adding
that HCR conducts Falls Prevention Assessments on its patients. As a result, HCR'
percentage of patients who sustain injuries that require emergent care is lower
than the national benchmark.
At 43, Karen Barry of Greece began to experience
balance issues that resulted in little falls at home. After her right side went
numb for 24 hours, extensive medical testing proved inconclusive. "I was
petrified because I needed help with everything," she said. "I could
only get out of my apartment by going down the stairs on my rear end. I couldn't
work."
A physical therapist from HCR specializing in balance provided
Barry with three months of intensive therapy. "She taught me exercises to
manage my eye, hand and body coordination," Barry, now 49 years old, said.
"I'm not cured-I still have to think about everything before I do it-but
HCR gave me my life back."
For an independent 84-year-old Churchville
woman, stepping on her bathrobe as she bent down to pick up her newspaper caused
her to fall. She lay on the floor for four days with a leg and hip injury.
"Falls
are a leading cause of injury, immobility, nursing home placement and premature
death in the elderly," Daniel said. After a brief hospitalization and stay
at a rehab facility, the Churchville woman received home-based physical therapy
and nursing care from HCR to regain her mobility and independence.
HCR
also developed and tested a four-step Falls Prevention Program at DePaul's Woodcrest
Commons. One year later, participants in the evidence-based exercise group performed
objective physical therapy tests for core stability, mobility and endurance significantly
better than non-participants. In the coming months, HCR will be providing fall
risk screens for Lifespan at its Downtown Senior Center, thanks to a grant from
the Rochester Primary Care Network.
To ensure that HCR assessments reflect
best practices in the industry, the agency collaborates with the Physical Therapy
Department at Nazareth College. "Their analysis of our 2008 fall data will
help us to ensure the efficacy of our screening tool and which risk factors carry
'more weight' than others," she explained.
HCR also developed a free
brochure on falls prevention that contains a self-administered risk assessment
test. For a copy, call HCR at (585) 272-1930.
