Prevention of falls in hospitals and nursing care facilities
Report
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A rapid summary of evidence supporting interventions to prevent falls in hospitals and nursing care facilities.
Key message
Background
A national patient safety campaign, planned to start in 2011, is being prepared. To support decisions regarding the choice of priority areas and interventions, we have performed a rapid summary of evidence regarding prevention of falls in hospitals and nursing care facilities.
Commission
The summary was performed on commission of The Norwegian Knowledge Centre for the Health Services, The secretary of the patient safety campaign 2011.
Main Conclusions
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Exercise does probably not reduce the number falls fall amongst elderly, nor the number of elderly who fall in hospitals or nursing care facilities (low quality).
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Multi factorial interventions organised by a multi disciplinary team, may reduce the number of falls amongst elderly, the number elderly who fall, and the number of hip fractions among elderly in nursing care facilities (low quality).
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Multi factorial interventions may reduce the number of falls amongst elderly and the number of elderly who fall in a hospital setting (low quality).
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Vitamine D supplements may reduce the number of falls in hospital and nursing care facilities (medium quality), but probably not the number of people who fall
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Medication reviews by pharmacists may reduce the number of falls in hospital and nursing care facilities, but probably not the number of people who fall (low quality).
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It is uncertain weather supervised exercise or physical interventions alone may prevent elderly from falling in hospitals and nursing care facilities (very low quality).
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Hip protectors may reduce the number of hip fractions (very low quality), but probably not the number of fractures in general (medium quality), or mortality (high quality).
The conclusions were based on results in two Cochrane reviews and one report from The Norwegian Knowledge Centre for the Health Services.