What is a fall prevention plan?
A Fall Prevention Plan is a compilation of protocols and guidelines to reduce the incidence of injury from falls. Falls prevention is a concern for both the walking and non-ambulatory senior population.
Falls are the number one cause of injury, hospital visits due to trauma, and death from an injury among people age 65 and older. Falls among older adults is a serious issue, but research has shown that many fall risks can be reduced. Seniors in care homes fall from both standing and seated positions. There are many different factors that can increase the risk of falling from a seated positon. Carefoam chairs are designed to prevent falls by non-ambulatory residents from seated positions. Patients may fall from their chairs due to cognitive impairment, agitated dementia, involuntary motion disorders, poor positioning, and discomfort.
Why is a fall prevention plan important to nursing homes?
An effective fall prevention plan has many benefits. The benefits of fewer falls to patients include less injury, agitation, discomfort and skin care issues. Fewer falls and injuries improve care giver staff job satisfaction and reduce person hours spent on dealing with the medical care required due to falls. The CDC estimates that the medical costs of a fall can add up to $17,000. Facilities that are cited for falls and injury during State Inspections are at risk for reduced resident intake and retention, and increased family dissatisfaction.
What challenges do on floor staff at nursing homes face preventing falls?
The care providers in healthcare facilities deal with a wide variety of challenges in ensuring that falls and injuries are prevented. Resident acuity, equipment decisions, proper facility lay out, and staffing levels are all factors that affect daily operations. When a patient is provided the right seating solution that reduces agitation, improves skin care, reduces the chance of injury or falls, and improves resident well-being, the daily challenges to staff are minimized.Carefoam Chairs Help Prevent Falls
for Elderly Nursing Home Patients
Carefoam chairs have a successful history of fall management in long term care. For over 15 years we have helped facilities reduce their falls risk. Carefoam chairs have been clinically studied by a leading University Medical Center and described as the most effective intervention tool available.*
The Fall Management policies and procedures of your facility will dictate when an intervention for the safety of a resident is mandated. The most frequent conditions requiring intervention are gait problems, dementia, and the negative effects of medications. More challenging conditions include combative dementia and the uncontrolled movements of Huntington’s Disease. A Carefoam chair returns your investment immediately by preventing just one fall.
The savings realized by reducing staff time and injury associated with a patient fall are significant. Carefoam chairs feature a three-year warranty, and many chairs have been in use for more than five years. All Carefoam chair bodies are constructed entirely of foam, contributing to improved skin care and a degree of patient comfort unmatched in the LTC Industry. The chairs are incontinence-proof and bacteriostatic, yet seem less like “geri chairs” and more like living room furniture.
Carefoam’s Fall Prevention chairs are designed to safely and comfortably seat nursing home patients that have diagnoses such as Alzheimer’s and other dementia, Huntington’s Disease, Parkinson’s Disease and other neuromuscular disorders, physical disability and mental disability, or that need accommodation for positioning and safety due to kyphosis, scoliosis, contractures or other conditions.
We assist your care team in preventing falls and injuries to non-ambulatory residents by supporting them in safe, pressure reducing, contoured foam chairs. The foam construction prevents bruises and lacerations caused by hard armrests and other chair hardware. Our machine washable comfort covers provide low shear, moisture controlled, patient friendly surfaces to help prevent skin irritation and bed sores.
A Complete Line of Products Designed to
Support Resident Safety and Reduce Fall Risk
Positioning Chairs
Chairs that are helpful for residents with reduced mobility due to aging, people with contractures, and those with significant physical limitations.
Fall Reduction Chairs
Chairs that are ideal for residents suffering from involuntary motion disorders such as Huntington's
and Parkinson's disease.
Watch This 1 Minute Video to Learn How Carefoam Chairs
Improve Resident Safety & Make Caregivers Jobs Easier
Our Chairs Have Met the Needs of Residents with
Diverse Fall Management Needs
Carefoam has a long history of providing effective geriatric seating for fall prevention protocols in long term care homes, skilled nursing facilities, hospitals and hospice. For disabled seniors and traumatic brain injury patients alike, we receive testimonials that show how well our chairs meet patient needs.
Testimonials and Publications
“Perhaps our best Carefoam success story occurred with a resident we will call “Jane”. She suffered cervical spine and sternal fractures. She also suffered from Alzheimer’s dementia, anxiety, kyphosis, depression, psychoneurosis, multiple contusions and skin tears. When Jane transferred to our facility she was receiving five antipsychotic medications due to several uncontrolled behaviors. During her course of therapy, it became apparent that her positioning was contributing to her behaviors. When all conventional options proved unsuccessful, the nursing department began an intensive internet search. The Carefoam chair was discovered and brought to the interdisciplinary team for discussion. The resident has been successfully weaned off of all but one of her psychoactive medications. Her pain is well-controlled without medication. Her activities of daily living improved. We attribute this success to the Carefoam chair. It is a wonderful product. We strongly encourage anyone who has never used this product line to try it.”
Respectfully, Heather Copen, RN, BSN, SpringMeade Health Center
Carefoam chairs were included in a fall prevention study carried out by Rush University clinicians. The findings were published in an abstract entitled "Fall Prevention Initiatives in Dementia Care". The study included seniors with acute mental illness, in a setting where incidents of patient falls were reaching as high as 18 in a month. The difficulty with a lack of verbal communication between care giver staff and dementia patients was a recognized factor. Problematic behaviors, such as agitation, can increase the risk for falls especially when combined with decreased cognitive ability and unsteady gait. When the patient’s comfort level is improved, their agitation and distress is decreased.
Focusing on Person Centered Care, initiatives were adopted to modify the patients' care environment, including the use of Carefoam chairs. The Results and Recommendations stated “Not until the introduction of the Carefoam chairs did fall incidents dramatically drop below the average. Interestingly, this decrease can be attributed to the fact that frequent fallers did not sustain any fall incident with the use of the Carefoam chairs during their subsequent hospitalizations. Using these chairs lessened agitation and made it harder for a person to get up without assistance." When the care team, be it nursing, physio therapy, occupational therapy, or any other healthcare discipline, is searching for a seating and positioning solution, Carefoam is the choice to make.
“ We had a young resident with Huntington’s Chorea in our facility for long term care. We did utilize a reclining wheelchair but regardless of the preventative interventions we tried she destroyed the chair due to her repetitive uncontrolled movements, not to mention the shearing and skin tears she sustained from the arm rests, foot rests, and plastic/metal parts on the chair. One of our staff members found an internet photo of a Carefoam Chair that they had discovered during an internet search for reclining wheelchairs. That Carefoam Chair was the most perfect and amazing gift to our resident. She was very, very excited and she received many compliments. Due to the higher sides of the Carefoam Chair she did not need to be belted or secured even with her repetitive movements. The chair was soft and protected her skin from injury due to her movements. It gave her a measure of dignity, to be upright, have something that looked so beautiful and allowed her to attend activities with other residents. Thank you, thank you, thank you! I definitely recommend the Carefoam Chair! ”
Michelle Bryant RN, Director of Nursing, Parkside Care Center
Our chairs were recognized in “Lessons Learned in the Care of Persons with Late-Stage Huntington’s Disease” (Edgemoor DP SNF, County of San Diego, CA)
Very late in the disease, we find many patients do well in Carefoam® chairs, which support the body in softness and are difficult to thrash out of. Given the nature of the disease, patients with HD are inherently at high risk of falls and injury.
In the book “Neurologic Rehabilitation: Neuroscience and Neuroplasticity in Physical Therapy Practice” by Larsen (2016) Carefoam gets the following acknowledgement as a solution for Huntington’s patients
“In late stage disease, individuals with HD typically have significant chorea and dystonic posturing… Positioning in chairs eventually becomes quite difficult... In long term care facilities, the use of reclined chairs, with padding around the head, shoulders and hips, helps to position the client and prevent injury, during choreic movements. At the time of this writing, there are two chairs on the market that fit the needs of the client with HD, the Broda® chair and the Carefoam® chair.”
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