Resumen de Older adult falls in emergency medicine - a sentinel event
Christopher R. Carpenter, Amy- Cameron, David A. Ganz, Shan Liu
Low-level falls occur in one-third of adults over age 65 each year and are a leading cause of death in developed nations. Injurious falls more often occur in community-dwelling older adults and usually in or around the home. Hence, prehospital providers generally represent the first-line health care professionals to manage falls and initiate innovative approaches to alleviate emergency department crowding. Emergency department falls research is limited in quality and quantity, with continued uncertainty regarding accurate, reliable, and feasible approaches to identify high- or low-risk fallers at increased risk for recurrent falls, as well as available interventions to reduce those future falls. Following an episode of emergency department care, some health care systems are using a falls clinic model to expedite definitive risk assessment and fall reduction interventions. Innovative approaches to assessing dynamic fall risk and fall incidence using smart phone technology are being explored.
