Your doctor and hospital have only had 7 years to followup this research with fall prevention protocols. I bet they are so fucking incompetent they haven't even started.
Abstract
BACKGROUND:
Falls
are common events among hospital inpatients and constitute a major
health problem in the rehabilitation setting. Many risk factors for
falls have been identified for stroke patients, such as muscle weakness,
medication side effects, hypoglycemia, hypotension, etc.
OBJECTIVES:
To assess the risk factors for falls among patients hospitalized for rehabilitation following acute stroke.
METHODS:
In
a retrospective study of 56 falls over a period of 5 years in 41 stroke
patients hospitalized for rehabilitation we surveyed the nurses' safety
risk assessment of the fall. Thirty patients fell once, 9 patients
twice and 2 patients four times. The data were obtained from the medical
and nursing records. Safety precautions were taken by the nurses for
the entire group of patients.
RESULTS:
Most
of the falls occurred among male patients who had reduced muscular tone
(70%), paralysis (54%) and/ or hypoesthesia in the involved side of the
body. Patients who suffered from hemiplegia fell more often than those
with hemiparesis (Wilcoxon rank sum test, P = 0.04, one-sided).
Forty-eight percent of the falls occurred during the first month after
the last stroke, 70% during the morning or the afternoon, and 62%
occurred close to the patient's bed. In 89% of falls the patients used
hypoglycemic, antihypertensive, tranquilizing or neuroleptic drugs.
Communication disorders (29%), hemianopia or blindness (21%) and
visuospatial agnosia (18%) were incremental risk factors for falls.
Fifty percent of the falls were caused by either an intrinsic or
extrinsic mechanism.
CONCLUSIONS:
These
data suggest that the group of stroke patients at risk for falls in a
rehabilitation department can be identified by a variety of impairment
and functional assessments. The information may be potentially useful
for designing interventions directed at reducing fall frequency among
stroke survivors.
- [Indexed for MEDLINE]
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