A surprising number of patients at nursing homes suffer from falls that lead to permanent injuries or even death. The worst part of this is that these are often surprisingly easy to avoid. A lot of falls happen simply because the safeguards to make sure that senior citizens are well cared for are not in place. For example, nursing homes have a reputation for being understaffed. There are often three or more patients per worker, and if a few people need something at the same time, this understaffing issue becomes potentially very dangerous.
Simple little things can prevent falls. Help with transfers, guardrails on beds, bars near toilets and showers, as well as a good wheelchair for getting around in, can all reduce the odds of a catastrophic fall. In the end, the thing that is going to be most helpful, though, is supervision. An in-home caregiver can help in a big way here. They can help with transfers from bed to the wheelchair, assist with toilet use and showering. Stats say that a 100 bed nursing home typically sees 100 to 200 falls Of the 1.5 million people in nursing homes, about half fall each year. Some of these 750,000 individuals fall multiple times. Many other falls go unreported, which seriously skews this data.
On a personal note, my grandmother fell a few months ago at her nursing home and broke her hip. In the last year, she has now broken both hips, the first one is what led to her being in a nursing home in the first place. More personalized care, complete with more caregivers per patient, would have prevented her latest accident. She needed help transfering from her bed to her chair, and when she called for an aide, none showed up in a timely manner, so she decided to do it herself. Just two minutes of help would have prevented a second broken hip, surgery, a week in the hospital, and now months of physical therapy.
This is where the one on one nature of in-home care is far superior to a nursing home. In the U.S., about 1,800 people die each year because of traumatic falls like what my grandma suffered. Some of these would have been completely avoided if they had had the proper care in place. Not everyone who falls dies or is permanently injured, and many of these could be prevented, too. In-home care certainly isn’t perfect, but it puts many of the concerns of falls completely at ease. If it is correct for your loved one as far as safety concerns go, you will find that this type of care will keep your elderly loved one a lot happier, as well. The comforts of home, plus the more personalized care levels that will be provided all contribute toward giving your loved one a better overall care experience. Happiness is one part of senior care that you cannot overlook, and in-home care accomplishes this better than any other type.
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