Our top tips for the prevention of falls

The prevention of falls is one of the most important aspects of care provision, so here are our top tips to help prevent falls 

For residents living in care homes, falls prevention isn’t just about preserving physical health and avoiding unnecessary injuries or admissions to hospital, it’s also about ensuring the best quality of life possible by guarding against the mental health consequences of suffering a fall. 

Whether it’s losing a sense of independence, an increase in feelings of anxiety or isolation because of a fall or the fear of falling, or any other of the negative feelings brought about my either a fall taking place or the fear of falling always being present, ensuring that every precaution is taken to make sure falls don’t happen, or are very unlikely to happen, is essential to providing a safe and positive environment for residents. 

So how can those working in care homes ensure that every possible precaution is taken to help in the prevention of falls? These are our top tips to consider: 

Nutrition and hydration 

One of the most important aspects of falls prevention, and indeed the provision of care for residents in general, is ensuring that they not only eat and drink enough, but that they are getting a healthy, balanced diet that provides all the essential nutrients they need. Though older adults tend to have less of an appetite, ensuring that they eat enough and that their fluid intake is sufficient will avoid situations where they feel lightheaded or sluggish. 

Exercise  

Staying active and keeping as fit as possible is a powerful way to holistically tackle falls in a care setting because depending on the exercises undertaken, care home residents can maintain and improve their muscle strength, which in turn leads to an improvement in balance, mobility and bone density, to ensure that they are more stable on their feet and less prone to falling in the first place, but exercises that improve the aspects mentioned above also mitigate falls if they do happen. Whether it’s an increase in strength or stability to help a care home resident ‘control’ their fall more safely to reduce the risk of injury, or whether it’s an increase in bone density acting to reduce the risk of fractures, exercises are a significant way to not only improve physical wellbeing to safeguard against falls, but they help to increase a sense of independence, confidence and enthusiasm to engage in the wider community. 

Removing any falling hazards 

Making sure that care home residents are in the best health they can be through diet, fluid intake and exercise is only part of the challenge when it comes to the prevention of falls. So many falls that take place in a care home setting are unnecessary and can happen because of hazards within the home itself, so removing these will further reduce the chances of falls happening. For example, you can: 

• Ensure there are handrails on both sides of any stairs and make sure they are secure 

• Ensure there is always good lighting in every room of the care home 

• Keep areas tidy and free from things like books, papers, clothes, shoes or wires 

• Make sure all carpets are firmly fixed to the floors to avoid slipping 

• Use no-skid mats and carpets 

• Ensure, where possible, that furniture isn’t placed in such a way that it might get in the way, and that it is of the right height to easily get in and out of 

Preventing falls with the Oomph! Wellbeing and Activities Platform 

With the Oomph! Wellbeing and Activities Platform, care staff have access to expert-created, individually tailored content that provides significant opportunities for engagement with residents on things they enjoy doing or things that interest them. But one of the most important aspects of the platform is its host of exercise programmes that have been specifically designed to help with promoting better health and fitness within a care home community. 

Another important part of the platform is the wealth of cooking activities available to be engaged with. With the cooking activities, care home residents have the chance to retain a sense of independence, engage the environment around them, and improve the quality of their nutrition. 

By harnessing the Wellbeing and Activities Platform, care homes can take a huge step forward in preventing falls and promoting greater quality of life for residents. 

For more information on the Oomph! Wellbeing and Activities Platform, just click here