Walkers and canes adding to serious falls
Falls involving walkers and canes commonly used by the elderly in the United States are responsible for an increasing number of injuries with 129 older Americans needing to go to hospital emergency rooms every day because of the problem.
A study by the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society examined the medical records of emergency departments for six years from 2001 to 2006 and found that for adults 65 and over who had falls related to walkers or canes, 87% involved walkers.
People were seven times more likely to be injured in a fall with a walker as with a cane. Older women suffered more than three out of four walker-related injuries (78%) and two out of three cane-related injuries (66%).
Other key findings were that the highest injury rates were among those 85 and older, fractures were the most common injury with a third of all injuries in the lower body such as hip or pelvis, more than half of the fall injuries occurred at home, and one in three people needed to be hospitalised.
The Centre’s study recommended that it was important for professionals to spend more time with their patients fitting walking aids and that there should be increased education of people in how to use walkers and canes more safely.
