Nursevillage.com - Career Resources : Help! I've Fallen & It's Costing Me an Arm and a Leg

Falls among adults in the U.S. are a growing concern. It’s one of the reasons that the Center for Disease Control, in partnership with the MetLife Foundation, have decided to redesign, update and translate educational materials that deal with this topic. Now available in English, Spanish and Chinese are the very latest tips and information under two different subjects relating to falls:

To put a better perspective on just how big of a problem this is consider some of the following statistics:

In the United States, one of every three persons age 65 and older fall each year.
White men have the highest fall-related death rates, followed by white women, black men, and black women.
Among older adults, falls are the leading cause of injury deaths and the most common cause of injuries and hospital admissions for trauma.
In 2002, nearly 13,000 people ages 65 and older died of fall-related injuries.
In 2003 more than 1.8 million seniors age 65 and older were treated in emergency departments for fall-related injuries and more than 421,000 were hospitalized.
Falls are a leading cause of traumatic brain injuries.
Fractures are the most serious health consequence of falls. Eighty-seven percent of all fractures among older adults are due to falls.
Half of all older people hospitalized for hip fractures cannot return home or live independently after their injury.
Women sustain about 80% of all hip fractures.
Among both sexes, hip fracture rates increase exponentially with age. People ages 85 years and older are 10 to15 times more likely to sustain hip fractures than are people ages 60 to 65.

These statistics are staggering, but what’s even more upsetting is the fact that many falls can be prevented. Through careful scientific studies, researchers have identified a number of modifiable risk factors:

Lower body weakness.
Problems with walking and balance.
Taking four or more medications or any psychoactive medications.

Strategies to prevent falls among older adults include:

exercises to improve strength, balance, and flexibility
reviews of medications that may affect balance
and home modifications that reduce fall hazards such as installing grab bars, improving lighting, and removing items that may cause tripping

Paying the Price of Falling Down

In an age group that consists mainly of individuals on fixed-incomes the rising medical costs associated with falls can be devastating. The price of fall-related injuries is often expressed in terms of direct costs.

Direct costs include out-of-pocket expenses and charges paid by insurance companies for the treatment of fall-related injuries. These include costs and fees associated with hospital and nursing home care, physician and other professional services, rehabilitation, community-based services, the use of medical equipment, prescription drugs, local rehabilitation, home modifications, and insurance administration.
Direct costs do not account for the long-term consequences of these injuries, such as disability, decreased productivity, or reduced quality of life.

In 2000, direct medical cost totaled $179 million or fatal and $19 billion for nonfatal fall injuries. The total cost of all fall injuries for people age 65 or older in 1994 was $27.3 billion (in current dollars). By 2020, the cost of fall injuries is expected to reach $43.8 billion. The most common fall-related injuries are osteoporotic fractures. These are fractures of the hip, spine, or forearm.

In the United States in 1986, the direct medical costs for osteoporotic fractures were $11.3 billion. By 1989, these costs exceeded $11.5 billion.
A study published in 1994 estimated that total direct medical costs for osteoporotic fractures among postmenopausal women in the next 10 years would be more than $61.2 billion.

Of all fall-related fractures, hip fractures are the most serious and lead to the greatest number of health problems and deaths. Up to 25% of community-dwelling older adults who sustain hip fractures must remain institutionalized for at least a year. This often results in paying out large sums of money to private nursing or rehab facilities. Hospital admissions for hip fractures among people over age 65 have steadily increased, from 230,000 admissions in 1988 to 338,000 admissions in 1999. The number of hip fractures is expected to exceed 500,000 by the year 2040. Assuming 5% inflation and the growing number of hip fractures, the total annual cost of these injuries is projected to reach $240 billion by the year 2040.

Ultimately, the costs are absolutely overwhelming but looking at the big picture — the effects of falls on our elderly — and all of should be concerned. We need to take action now, whether for ourselves or for the older adults in our lives. Prevention is key! Stop falls before they happen. You can find the updated education materials mentioned earlier as well as all the facts and figure discussed throughout the article on the CDC website under the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control.