Fall Assessment Research Paper

Working on the burn and wound unit which is a step-down from the burn ICU, the patient population varies in age with the youngest aged 17 to a patient that was 106. People get burned through many mechanisms such as fire, hot liquid, or electricity and falls are a small reason why the patients get burned. Falls play a small role as to why our patients get burned. Our focus however, is fall prevention once they reach us. Patients who get burned are considered fall risks for multiple reasons; from the opioids they will receive while staying with us, to mobility issues due to their injuries. This is especially true with older adults. Fall assessment is always at the forefront of our clinical practice. “Falls among older adults tend to occur

The STEADI (stopping elderly accidents, deaths, and injuries) program contains basic information about falls which covers standardized gait and balance assessment tools. In the hospital, the use the Morse Fall Scale is a fast and simple method of assessing a patient’s chances of a falling. However, the Morse scale may not be entirely predictive as there may be a need for further assessing the risk of falls among older adults. Although not employed currently on our unit, the Hendrich II Fall Risk Model maybe a tool that can narrow and finely pinpoint underlying risks, especially in those who are older adults. The major strengths of this model “is its brevity, the inclusion of risky medication categories, and its focus on interventions for specific areas of risks” (Hendrich, 2017). Falls cause harm, both physical and psychologically. Regardless of age, falls can radically change a patients’ quality of life. As nurses, assessing, re-assessing, and educating our patients, plays a major role in fall prevention, especially those vulnerable to falls such as the elderly

(2017, February 03). Fall Risk Assessment for Older Adults: The Hendrich II Fall Risk Model | ConsultGeri Assessment Tool. Retrieved November 7, 2017, from