A third of people aged over 65 (a statistic which rises to 50% in people aged over 80) will fall at least once a year.
20% of senior living community residents admitted to hospital after such a fall will have been on the floor for over an hour, and perhaps most shocking is that of those, 50% will then die within six months from related complications, even if they were uninjured!
Making the problem even worse is the fact that after you’ve fallen once, there’s a 60% chance of having another fall, which in a lot of people leads to loss of confidence and a reduction in activity which in turn leads to loss of muscle strength which then makes future falls even more likely, a self-fulfilling, vicious circle.
Being left on the floor for extended periods of time has a wide range of both physical and psychological implications:
Pressure Sores/Pressure Ulcers
Incontinence
Dehydration
Hypothermia
Psychological
Death