patient falls in psych.

[yesdog55]

Hi folks, I just found this site today while I was trying to find information on falls. I work in a state psych hospital, the #'s of falls my patients are having has greatly increased and my job is to come up with a fall assessment and protocals/precautions. This job would be easy if I could say all of my patients were old, but not true.....many are young, many fall on purpose or are just plain stubborn and don't want to ask for help. It doesn't make sense to reinvent the wheel. Can anyone give me any help????

[donmurray]

I'm sure it's been covered here, try a search...buttons top right,3rd from right.

[morghan]

Our hospital uses a fall assessment tool which is fairly pondorous and minimally predictive... this is the key element prediction. Not who may fall but who is really going to fall. I did lots of searching too about this since I work on Geropsych and we have lots of frail elderly clients. I found a book by a lady named Morse... Janice I think, and she has done a bunch of research on fall prediction, and has developed a tool to assess which patients will fall. You can purchase her book off the web, and use her Morse Fall scale which is a quick and dirty little 6 point item test.

Good Luck

Morghan

[nitenurse74]

Well if the Fed's haven't completely banned the useof soft restraints, that's one way. Another is to be aware of the postural b/p, the amt of psychotropics and any recent prn's. It's a Law, # 1 "Gomer's go to ground" (from Hse of God. great book, check it out if you haven't already. But falls not only can endanger the client, yhey also make for reams of paperwork. Keep your eyes peeled and your assessment skills razor sharp! (-: good luck

[donmurray]

Does anyone know whether carpeting or vinyl flooring makes a difference to frequency or outcomes of falls?