Bathroom Falls and Injuries: Data, Studies and Statistics

Feb 3rd, 2011

by admin.

We are in the business of making homes, assisted living facilities, and universities safer places to live. An important selling point for manufacturers and dealers of low threshold showers and walk-in tubs is that the bathroom poses dangers that causes falls and injuries. Wet slippery floors, high tub walls to step over, and confined spaces can make bathrooms dangerous for just about anyone, let alone the elderly and people with limited mobility. Our goal is to remove the barriers that can cause slips and falls.

Naturally, health and community organizations take fall risks and injuries very seriously. Through fall prevention programs, some very sobering statistics on falls have been revealed. Here is some data gathered from studies and surveys to consider:

Queensland (Australia) Injury Surveillance Unit:

www.qisu.org.au/

“Older people(65 and older) typically have greater difficulties with mobility, vision and balance making them more likely to fall or slip which accounted for 79% of bathroom injuries for this demographic,”

“Over a third of the elderly required hospital admission following a bathroom incident. It can be estimated that every year at least 10 older Queenslanders will die from falls in their bathrooms, demonstrating that prevention of these types of injuries will both save lives and improve quality of life.”

Home Safety Council:

www.homesafetycouncil.org

Survey respondents consider the bathroom to be the second most dangerous room in their home (behind the kitchen).

British Columbia Ministry of Health: Support for the Strategies & Actions for Independent Living (SAIL), Falls and Injury Independent Living Prevention Program in British Columbia

http://www.coag.uvic.ca/resources/publications/reports/Fall_Prevention_Training_SAIL.pdf

Of the 220 clients that started SAIL, 85 (39%) fell over 180 days of study for a total of 142 falls. 13% of the falls occurred in the bathroom

University of Michigan Health System: Bath falls common among older adults

http://www2.med.umich.edu/prmc/media/newsroom/details.cfm?ID=907

Researchers videotaped people ages 60 and older who demonstrated (while fully clothed) how they normally climbed in and out of the shower or tub. One-third of the 89 participants in the study had difficulty, such as plopping onto a tub seat or hitting the side of the tub or the shower threshold with their legs.

One of the major problem areas the researchers found involved sliding glass doors in showers. Three-quarters of participants who used shower stalls with sliding glass doors tried to utilize the door for stability or balance.

“This is extremely unsafe because shower doors were not designed to support a person’s weight,” Murphy says. “This problem could be easily remedied by educating older adults not to use the door as a support or possibly replacing it with a shower curtain, which was used only rarely by older adults in this study.”

While the majority of people using both tubs and shower stalls used safe environmental features such as grab bars, many used unsafe features in addition to the safe ones. Nineteen percent of participants using a tub were evaluated as using unsafe features, and more than 70 percent of those with shower stalls used unsafe features, such as the glass door, towel bar or a tub seat. One participant had a plastic lawn chair as a tub seat, a particularly dangerous improvisation given curved shape of the tub floor.

Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital

http://injuryresearch.net/page12103830.aspx

According to a recent study conducted by the Center for Injury Research and Policy of The Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, more than 43,000 children 18 years and younger in the United States are treated in hospital emergency departments annually for injuries occurring in a bathtub or shower. The number of injuries remained consistently high over the 18-year study period from 1990-2007

Pediatrics: Injuries Associated With Bathtubs and Showers Among Children in the United States

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/peds.2008-2489v1

There were an estimated 791,200 bathtub- and shower-related injuries among children 18 years of age who were treated in US emergency departments in 1990–2007, with an average of 43,600 cases per year or 5.9 injuries per 10,000 US children per year. The largest number of injuries involved children 2 years of age; children 4 years accounted for 54.3% of injuries.

Abir Mullick - State University of New York at Buffalo: Bathing for Older People with Disabilities

http://www.ap.buffalo.edu/idea/Publications/Bathing%20for%20Older%20People.htm

According to the National Safety Council, one person dies everyday from using bathtub/shower in the United States. Of the 24,000 accidental deaths of people over the age of 65 every year, many are bathing related (Burdman, 1986). The National Safety Council reported that 345 people of all ages died in bathtubs in 1989, 364 in 1988, and 348 in 1987.

After the swimming pool, the bathtub is the second major site of drowning in the home. Budnick and Ross (1985) studied bathtub-related drownings from 1979-1981. They concluded that those with least control over their environments – young and the elderly -have the greatest risk of drowning. Children less than 5 years old accounted for 25 percent, and those over the age of 75, 15.5 percent of the bathtub-related deaths. Drowning deaths, for those over the age of 60, were primarily due to having fallen in the tub.

On an average, 370 persons of all ages sustain injuries from bathtub/shower daily in the United States. The dangerous aspect of bathing is evident from the injury data reported by the Consumer Product Safety Commission: 117,230 bathtub/shower injuries in 1989; 136,616 in 1990; and 139,434 in 1991.Those between the ages of 25-64 accounted for 37 percent of all bathtub/shower injuries; the most vulnerable being those closer to the upper age limit. The elderly accounted for 17 percent of bathtub/shower injuries in 1989, 22 percent in 1990, and 20 percent in 1991.

Bathing is a difficult task for a large number of the America’s elderly. Another study by the NIDRR indicated that in 1987, “a total of 3.6 million persons (12 percent in the community of over 65) had difficulty with at least one Activity of Daily Living or mobility(walking) . . . ADL and mobility difficulties affecting the greatest number of elderly were bathing (2.5 million or 8.9 percent)” .

Go to bed early with your CPAP machines or get a few extra minutes at the gym?

As you know, most of the contestants on The Biggest Loser use sleep apnea equipment to treat their OSA. How do they balance sleep and exercise?

The Biggest Loser contestants are challenged daily to learn all the tools to maintain weight loss and a healthy lifestyle.

These include exercise, nutrition and yes, sleep. Which is the most important? It’s about finding a balance to do them all.

There is a wealth of information regarding exercise and nutrition and how important they are to being healthy. Our daily lives are inundated with messages to exercise and eat healthy and they even provide information on how to do that!

Maybe you have been exercising and eating right for months now. Even so, you still have been feeling run down and can’t seem to get those extra pounds off.

What’s missing? Healthy sleep.?

Whether you have apnea or not, sleep plays a very vital role in this health equation. It is just as important as exercise and nutrition for your health.

Most of us look at sleep as a nuisance. Some of us even brag about how little sleep we can get and still function.

The reality is, no matter how hard you exercise or how well you eat, without proper rest you will not be on your “A” game.

Sleep affects everything. Your mood, work performance, exercise, weight loss, and general health. Proper sleep allows our body to recover and is necessary for our bodies to function on a healthy level. Sleep is a very ACTIVE state of being. Your body works hard to regulate all the biological processes that prepare for and aid your body and mind so they can rest and recover from a hard day’s work.

When we don’t spend enough time in bed to get the sleep we need or when sleep time in bed is disrupted, the rest and recovery doesn’t happen properly.

People who have sleep apnea, have an even greater challenge when it comes to good sleep because their bodies wake them up several times every hour to breathe disrupting the rhythm of rest and recovery.

Those of you, who have obstructive sleep apnea that is untreated, can spend 8 hours in bed and only get 4 or less hours of sleep! Would you put your money in an investment where for every $8 you put in you only get $4 back? An estimated 18 million Americans have sleep apnea, including most of our TBL friends.

Untreated sleep apnea (or not using you sleep apnea devices) not only affects your day to day ability to function, but can lead to some serious health problems including obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke and diabetes.

Sleep apnea gone undiagnosed can leads to a vicious cycle of unhealthy living. It starts with daytime sleepiness.

When we are tired we are less likely to make healthy choices such as exercising and eating right. Even if we do make it to the gym, our workouts are less efficient.

If we don’t get enough sleep, we are less motivated to take the time for healthy meals and tend to grab something quick and usually unhealthy. This leads to weight gain.

Our sleep is directly related to our appetite and metabolism as well. This provides further evidence that sleep and obesity are linked.

What does this all mean? What should The Biggest Loser contestants do – sleep or exercise?

No one knows what the perfect balance needs is. What we do know is that sleep, exercise, and nutrition are all critically important to the healthy lifestyle we all strive to attain.

As for our friends at the ranch, they are learning if one of these components is left out, all of the othersm may suffer. We look forward to talking to them and giving you more insight into how they balance it all as the season continues.

For now, get your rest and wear your CPAP !!

Senate First Month Purchase Option Letter

Click Here for full letter from the Senate

"Providers of mobility products are reliant on timely payment from Medicare to provide costly products, such as power wheelchairs to Medicare beneficiaries..."

Your Voice Matters - Speak Up Before Competitive Bidding Hits Utah in 2013

Beneficiaries are quiet on bidding issues By Theresa Flaherty Managing Editor - 01.28.2011 BALTIMORE - While reports of problems associated with Round 1 of competitive bidding are trickling in, one group has remained quiet: beneficiaries. "We are not hearing anywhere near enough (from beneficiaries)," said Wayne Stanfield, executive director of NAIMES. "There are obviously problems, but not enough that would make Congress take notice." Reported problems so far range from delayed hospital discharges to trouble finding the right equipment or provider, but most of these problems are being reported by providers themselves. Too bad lawmakers are probably tired of hearing from HME providers, say industry stakeholders. "I think the biggest impact has to come from the end user," said Rose Schafhauser, executive director of the Midwest Association for Medical Equipment Services. "We really need them to kind of knock lawmakers over the head and say, 'This really is an issue.'" Industry stakeholders have set up toll-free complaint lines as well as websites, www.biddingfeedback.com and www.competitivebiddingconcerns.com, to make it easy to report problems. AAHomecare has received a few dozen complaints from patients and caregivers. "It's probably just the tip of the iceberg," said Michael Reinemer, vice president of communications and policy for the association. "Real problems won't necessarily emerge in the first couple of weeks." Another issue: Providers are bending over backward to make the program work, giving beneficiaries fewer reasons to complain. "We are hearing that there are many suppliers simply taking patients, whether they are getting paid or not," said Stanfield. "In many cases where a contract supplier won in one or two categories, they may take them in other categories as well." Still, it's only been a month since the program officially kicked off, and as it continues to roll along, it is likely that increasing numbers of issues will crop up. For now, it's important for providers to continue to get the word out. "We've been strategizing about how we can get the message out there," said Schafhauser. "We've got flyers that members hand out to referral sources and beneficiaries, and we are concentrating on making sure they get information out there that the calls aren't coming in yet."

AAHomecare Asks Obama to Review “Patchwork” of Ineffective HME Regulations

Thursday, January 20, 2011

AAHomecare Asks Obama to Review “Patchwork” of Ineffective HME Regulations

Yesterday, the American Association for Homecare asked President Obama to review “onerous and outdated regulations that hamper job creation and threaten access to quality home medical equipment (HME) and services under the Medicare program.” AAHomecare sent Obama a letter in response to the President’s January 18 executive order, “Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review,” which solicits examples of problematic regulations. View the executive order here.

The Association asked specifically that the President examine “policies related to competitive bidding for durable medical equipment, respiratory therapy…, power mobility devices, diabetes testing equipment and supplies, Medicare audits and anti-fraud and abuse initiatives.”

The full text of the letter follows.

The President
The White House
Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear Mr. President:

I am writing on behalf of the American Association for Homecare (AAHomecare) to express our keen interest in working with your Administration to review onerous and outdated regulations that hamper job creation and threaten access to quality home medical equipment (HME) and services under the Medicare program. We believe that in complying with your Executive Order, Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review, we should take a holistic approach to the Medicare HME benefit and specifically look at issues such as policies related to competitive bidding for durable medical equipment, respiratory therapy (including home oxygen and sleep devices), power mobility devices, diabetes testing equipment and supplies, Medicare audits and anti-fraud and abuse initiatives.

AAHomecare is the only national trade association representing every line of medical equipment and services within the homecare community. The Association represents health care providers and manufacturers who serve the medical needs of millions of Americans who require durable medical equipment, prosthetics, orthotics and supplies (DMEPOS) such as home oxygen therapy, mobility assistive technologies, diabetes therapy and other supplies, sleep therapy technologies, inhalation drug therapy, home infusion, and other home medical equipment, therapies, services, and supplies in their homes. Our membership reflects a cross-section of the homecare community, including national, regional and local providers.

The Association believes that there are a number of regulations that relate to the HME sector that need close scrutiny. These regulations, created over a 25-year period, have created a patchwork of rules that could be better designed to improve the quality of care furnished by HME providers with the goal of caring for individuals in their homes rather than in more costly institutional settings like nursing homes and hospitals.

AAHomecare looks forward to working with you and your Administration to address ineffective and outdated rules and the hassle factor these regulations create on HME providers that inhibit job growth and quality of care. The Association will provide you with more detailed comments in the near future and I am available to meet with you or your staff to discuss these concerns further.

If you have questions about the Association’s concerns, please contact Jay Witter at (703) 535-1884 or jayw@aahomecare.org.

Sincerely,

Tyler J. Wilson
President

Tax Help in Caring For an Aging Parent

Tax Help in Caring For an Aging

Parent

By Kay Bell - Posted January 25, 2011 7:00 PM

Millions of adult children find themselves looking after aging parents. Tax laws offer some help, as long as you and your folks meet the criteria.

The key to Internal Revenue Service assistance in caring for an elderly relative is whether you can claim the person as a dependent. Any dependent must meet certain tests. While there is a little flexibility when dealing with children, fewer exceptions are granted when the potential dependent is older.

Despite the qualification obstacles, it doesn't hurt to explore whether you can claim your parent as a dependent. If you and your parent meet IRS requirements, you'll be able to claim an added personal exemption on your income tax return.

Then there are possible deductions and credits. If you pay medical expenses for a dependent parent, you may be able to deduct some of those costs. Hire a caregiver to help you out and a credit could cut your tax bill a bit more.

Dependency hurdles

The highest dependency hurdle is the amount of income your older parent earns. A dependent parent cannot make more than the exemption amount. The income barrier represents taxable income, notes John W. Roth, a senior federal tax analyst with CCH Inc., a national tax and business law publisher.

"Social Security normally is excludable, but if they have other income, which in many cases means interest and dividends, some is taxable," Roth says. "So you want to start with that first in determining if the parent meets the income test.

"It's amazing how that generation has invested in stocks, bonds, saving accounts and how quickly it can add up," says Roth.

Such disciplined saving habits mean that many adult children cannot claim mom or dad as a dependent. If, however, you and your parent meet the income standard, the next consideration is how much support you provide.

Paying for more than half

To be deemed a dependent for tax purposes, your parent must get more than half of his or her support from you.

"When the parent lives in your home, to reach the 50 percent-plus threshold you should take into account the fair-market room rental, food, medicine and other little support items," says Roth. "This is where Social Security does come into play. If a parent is using benefits to pay for some of these support items, it goes into the calculation of whether you cover more than half of your parent's support costs."

Read more: http://www.thirdage.com/caregiving/tax-help-caring-aging-parent?utm_medium=email&utm_source=nl_moneywork_20110126_70_33011_thirdage&utm_content=1588582&utm_campaign=thirdage#ixzz1C9fyINEX