The Role of Fall Prophylaxis in the Quality of Life of the Geriatric Patients

Abstract

Elderly people are not only more susceptible to disease, but they are also at a higher risk of sustaining accidents such as falls, which definitely affects the quality of human life. Aging, in other words, carries with it an increased danger of illness and injuries, including those caused by falling. Research referred to in this article consisted in collecting and analyzing anonymized data of 411 geriatric patients admitted to a hospital in Berlin, Germany, over a period of six months, between January and June 2020, and attempted to look at how fall prophylaxis can reduce the overall healthcare costs generated by senior citizens. Of the 411 geriatric patients, 105, aged between 49 and 97 (69 females and 36 males), sustained injuries due to falling and made up 34.3% of all geriatric patients. Conclusions that the author arrived at can prove useful to determine the importance of the prevention of falls of older people in reducing the complications resulting from falls. The overall costs of senior citizens' health care were also taken into consideration. Therefore, solutions should be sought to reduce the number of falls of older people. Falls are an important public health problem causing suffering for elderly patients, worsening the comfort of further life and additionally generating relatively high costs for the economy.

Keywords

• ageing
• public health
• quality of life
• physical activity
• walkability
• geriatric patients