HEAD INJURIES FROM FALLS AT HOME

Prevention of head injury at home:

With increasing elderly population in Bhubaneswar and else where the caretakers are advised to provide safe beds to them.These are the following steps to minimize and prevent falls in house. Falling out of bed kills 450 people annually in the U.S and much more in India, we have no statistics. According to the Center for Disease Control, falling out of bed accounts for 1.8 million emergency room visits and over 400 thousand hospital admissions each year. The very young and the very old are most at risk, and with decreased stability as we age, people over the age of 65 tend to fare the worst when falling.

1.The bathroom floor should be rough.Glazed tiles are nice to look at but bad for the foot grip.Most of the fracture of hip bones occur in toilet and washrooms.

2.Bath room must be well lighted.

3.Bath rooms should always be kept dry.

4.Instruct the senior citizens not to bolt the washroom from inside.

5.The height of bed should be as low as possible with one side fixed to the wall.

6.If possible put a mattress  on one side of the bed on the floor at night.

7.Put a night lamp in your senior citizen room .

8.Ask your parents or senior citizen to drink less water after 6pm

9.Provide them with a cordless calling bell.

10.Take care of the neck while lifting the person from the floor after the fall.

11.Removed all the pointed and glass furniture from bed rooms and drawing rooms.

Sanjoy Kumar Satpathy,Senior Consultant Medicine.SAIL.