Fall Prevention Strategies and Interventions
Research indicates that multifactorial intervention programs can reduce the number of falls; in a meta-analysis of studies of older people in general the reduction was around 27%, and in those selected because of a previous fall or other risk factor there was a 14% reduction. Although further research is needed, preventative measures with the greatest likelihood of a positive effect include strength and balance training, home risk assessment, withdrawing psychotropic medication, cardiac pacing for those with carotid sinus hypersensitivity, T'ai chi. T'ai chi exercises have been shown to provide 47% reduction in falls in some studies but it does not improve measures of postural stability. T'ai chi may gain its success, in part, from promoting confidence rather than primarily reducing the postural instability. Assistive technology can also be applied, although it is mostly reactive in case of a fall.
Read more about this topic: Fall Prevention
Famous quotes containing the words fall, prevention and/or strategies:
“The one who rushes ahead hastily will probably fall behind.”
—Chinese proverb.
Mencius.
“... if this world were anything near what it should be there would be no more need of a Book Week than there would be a of a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.”
—Dorothy Parker (1893–1967)
“By intervening in the Vietnamese struggle the United States was attempting to fit its global strategies into a world of hillocks and hamlets, to reduce its majestic concerns for the containment of communism and the security of the Free World to a dimension where governments rose and fell as a result of arguments between two colonels’ wives.”
—Frances Fitzgerald (b. 1940)