In a perfect world, every nursing home across Kentucky would maintain a nurturing, comfortable environment for residents, but regrettably, this is far from the case. Instead, the quality of care many older adults receive in nursing homes and assisted living facilities is subpar, at best, and when the quality of care suffers, injuries, including falls, often rise.
Per Industrial Safety & Hygiene News, resident falls are alarmingly commonplace in American nursing homes, with about 1,800 nursing home residents passing away annually in the United States because of fall-related injuries. Statistics also show that the typical American nursing home facility reports between 100 and 200 falls each year, but this number refers solely to the number of resident falls reported, meaning there may, in fact, be many more that occur.
Somewhere between about 10% and 20% of those nursing home resident falls result in injuries considered to be “extremely serious,” while somewhere between about 2% and 6% of nursing home resident falls lead to fractures. Even when resident falls do not result in serious injuries, though, they can still have a significant effect on an older American’s psyche.
For example, many older Americans who fall find that they become increasingly immobile afterward, and in some cases, this happens not because of injuries, but because of fears about falling again. Furthermore, many nursing home residents who fall find that they become increasingly depressed and isolated in the aftermath of doing so. Ultimately, nursing home falls can arise from any number of different circumstances, but understaffing and environmental factors are frequent contributors to resident falls. You can find more on this topic on our webpage.