The Importance of a Call Button

Patient falls are an unnecessary risk in nursing homes.  In most cases, patients fall because they are trying to satisfy a need that was not being tended to.  These falls can lead to serious injuries like fractures, and can cause patients to develop a disability, or show a general decline in quality of life over a short period of time. 

These falls are not the fault of the residents; they are the fault of the nursing home staff for failing to provide the residents with enough resources.  In order to avoid these unfortunate situations, nursing home staffs should educate their residents to use a help, or call button.  If a patient needs something their initial reaction should be to ask for help rather than try to get something done on their own. 

There are a few other things you can do to cut back on these falls:

 

•   Make sure anything that a patient needs on a regular basis, (phone, water, etc.), is within reach of a patient’s bed. 
•   Are your residents falling because they’re getting up to turn on the television?  Set the television to turn on automatically when the patient generally wakes up. 
•    Help your patient find their way to the restroom by turning the bathroom light on at night. 
•    Check in regularly with your patients to make sure that they are being escorted to the restroom as needed.

These are just a few simple tips, but they can go a long way toward reducing the number of patient falls in any nursing home.