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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Cluster randomised trial of a targeted multifactorial intervention to prevent falls among older people in hospital | | Author(s) | Robert G Cumming, Catherine Sherrington, Stephen R Lord |
| Journal title | British Medical Journal, vol 336 no 7647, 5 April 2008 |
| Pages | pp 758-760 |
| Source | http://www.bmj.com |
| Keywords | Falls ; Preventative medicine ; In-patients ; Cluster analysis ; Clinical surveys ; Australia. |
| Annotation | The efficacy of a targeted multifactorial falls prevention programme for patients with relatively short lengths of stay in hospital was determined in a study of 3999 patients (mean age 79; median length of say 7 days) in 34 elderly care wards in 12 hospitals in Sydney, Australia. A nurse and physiotherapist each worked for 25 hours a week for 3 months in all intervention wards. They provided a multifactorial intervention that included a risk assessment of falls, staff and patient education, drug review, modification of bedside and ward environments, an exercise programme, and alarms to selected patients. Intervention and control wards were similar at baseline for previous rates of falls and individual patient characteristics. Overall, 381 falls occurred during the study. No differences were found in fall rates during follow-up between intervention and control wards: respectively 926 falls per 1000 bed days and 9.2 falls per 1000 bed days. The incidence ratio adjusted for individual lengths of stay and previous fall rates in the ward was 0.96. This targeted multifactorial falls prevention programme was not effective for older people in hospital for relatively short lengths of stay. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-080408204 A |
| Classmark | OLF: LK2: LF7: 3YB: 3G: 7YA * |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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