As you age, you typically become more susceptible to falling and injuring yourself, and many older adults across Maryland have a number of risk factors affecting them that make them even more prone to falling. At the Law Offices of Sloane L. Fish, LLC, we understand that, while older adults may have issues affecting them that make them more likely to fall, environmental factors also contribute to the number of older people falling each year. We also recognize that environmental factors are often at play when older adults fall in American nursing homes.
Just how often are older adults falling in nursing home environments, and how frequently are they dying because of their injuries? According to Industrial Safety & Hygiene News, the average United States nursing home reports between about 100 and 200 resident falls each year. While these numbers are undoubtedly troubling, so, too, is the fact that they refer only to the number of falls that employees actually report, suggesting that the true number of nursing home resident falls in each setting may be much higher.
While more than a hundred residents fall annually at most American nursing homes, about 1,800 nursing home residents nationwide ultimately wind up succumbing to their fall-related injuries. Additionally, as many as three-quarters of all nursing home residents fall at least once every year, which is almost twice the rate that seniors who do not live in nursing homes fall within a one-year period.
Also troubling is the fact that older adults living in nursing homes are more likely to die from their injuries than older adults who live at home or in the company of family members. In fact, nursing home residents are four times more likely to die because of fall-related injuries than their peers who live elsewhere. Find more on this topic on our webpage.
