LibGuides: Nursing LibGuide: Falls

Aprils Falls 2025 for Health Professionals

April Falls Month 2025
April Falls Month® is an annual campaign to raise awareness about the impact of falls and to promote the latest best practice fall prevention strategies. This year, the overall campaign goal is to make use of all available resources to reduce falls risk, get active and improve balance for fall prevention.

SWSLHD Nursing & Midwifery Point of Care Resource for Falls, Wound Prevention, Managing Challenging Behaviours and Delirium

SWSLHD Nursing & Midwifery Point of Care Resource for Falls, Wound Prevention, Managing Challenging Behaviours and Delirium

SWSLHD Comprehensive Care Resources - Staff Intranet only

SWSLHD Comprehensive Care Resources
Compehensive Care education resources can be found in the SWSLHD Intranet

Fall Prevention in NSW: White Paper 2023

Fall Prevention in NSW White Paper 2023
The CEC has released the Fall Prevention in NSW White Paper 2023 which highlights the high cost and trauma of falls for individuals and the community and gives examples of local solutions already being undertaken around NSW. It also provides nine recommendations for policy makers, stakeholders and governments to consider and respond to.

Fall Prevention: NSW Government Clinical Excellence Commission

Clinical Excellence Commission - Fall Prevention
The Clinical Excellence Commission's page has links to information for clinicians, patients, family and carers.

Australian and New Zealand Falls Prevention Society

Australia and New Zealand Falls Prevention Society
The website of the Australian and New Zealand Falls Prevention Society (ANZFPS). he ANZFPS was formed in 2006 to promote the multidisciplinary study and implementation of falls prevention in older people. They provide advocacy for fall prevention to
decision makers and community partners to
translate evidence into practice and policy. Their website also provides educational resources
and training opportunities that relate to evidence based fall prevention.

A selection of relevant print books and eBooks

A selection of texts are shown below, click on the image to access. Staff can request print books from libraries across the SWSLHD District and choose where they will collect them. See the Reserve page for instructions and contact your Library if you need assistance. You will be prompted to login to eBooks as necessary. To access CIAP resources from a personal device you can use your staff login. To access SWSLHD eBooks you will need an Athens account.

Exercise for Aging Adults by Gail M. Sullivan (Editor); Alice K. Pomidor (Editor)
ISBN: 9783319160955
Publication Date: 2015-08-10
This book provides practical strategies that can be implemented immediately in the common settings in which practitioners care for adults.
Falls in Older People, 3rd edition. by Stephen R. Lord (Editor); Catherine Sherrington (Editor); Vasi Naganathan (Editor)
Call Number: Print book
ISBN: 9781108706087
Publication Date: 2021-11-04
This third edition of a trusted resource brings together the latest literature across multiple fields to facilitate the understanding and prevention of falls in older adults. Thoroughly revised by a multidisciplinary team of authors, it features a new three-part structure covering epidemiology and risk factors for falls, strategies for prevention and implications for practice.
Fragility Fracture and Orthogeriatric Nursing : Holistic Care and Management of the Fragility Fracture and Orthogeriatric Patient by Karen Hertz and Julie Santy-Tomlinson
Call Number: ProQuest eBook
ISBN: 9783031334849
Publication Date: 2023
Provides a comprehensive and practical overview of the knowledge required for the assessment and management of the older adult with or at risk of fragility fracture, with additional focus on those who are frail. It considers this from the perspectives of all the clinical and home care settings in which this group of patients receive care and is relevant to all global locations.
Step Safely : Strategies for Preventing and Managing Falls Across the Life-Course by World Health Organization
Call Number: ProQuest eBook
ISBN: 9789240021914
Publication Date: 2021
The Step Safely technical package provides concrete recommendations for evidence-based strategies to prevent and manage falls for children and adolescents, workers, and older people. Among others, effective prevention measures include parenting programmes for low-income and marginalized families, stricter worker safety regulations, and strength and balance training for older people.

Journal Articles

The Correlation Between Fall Prevention Knowledge and Behavior in Stroke Outpatients
Stroke outpatients have a high risk of falling. However, fall prevention measures in the community are insufficient to effectively reduce the fall rate among outpatients with stroke. We aimed to determine the correlation between fall prevention knowledge and behavior among outpatients with stroke and provide new strategies for community fall prevention. Huang Y., Wu C., Peng H., et al April 2020 DOI: 10.1097/JNN.0000000000000494
Perspectives on How Fall Prevention Technologies Can Support Older Adults’ Self-Monitoring Processes
Fall risk increases as older adults lose the functional resources necessary to maintain balance while completing everyday activities. As functional resources often decline gradually with age, momentary deficits may not be apparent until after a fall occurs. Mobile fall prevention technologies could support older adults in self-monitoring their ability to safely navigate their environments. In this paper we present perspectives on self-monitoring and feedback in a sample of older adults (n = 20, 50% female, age 65+) who had self-assessed their balance via a smartphone for 30 consecutive days. Thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews showed that fall history differentiated a) participants’ awareness of day-to-day variation in functional ability; b) trust in the accuracy of self-monitoring; and c) imaginations of what types of feedback a mobile fall prevention technology should provide. Insight on older adults’ internal self-monitoring processes and guidelines for feedback design are discussed. Shannon Meija, Sungjae Hong, Aileen Griffin, Tai-Te Su, Jacob Sosnoff 17 December 2021 https://doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igab046.478
Revising and evaluating falls prevention education for older adults in hospital
Partnering with patients and staff to develop and evaluate falls prevention education could better enable patient learning and engagement. This study aimed to create a revised version of the Safe Recovery falls prevention education programme in partnership with older patients and hospital staff, to improve patient engagement in undertaking falls preventive strategies in hospital. Francis-Coad, J., Farlie, M. K., Haines, T., Black, L., Weselman, T., Cummings, P., & Hill, A.-M. (2023) https://doi.org/10.1177/00178969231204329

Podcasts

Brainstorm Bites Episode #4 - Falls Risk
This edition of Brainstorm Bites will highlight the impact, potential causes and simple strategies to limit the effect of falls.
Podcast Episode 62: Falls Prevention
Join Dilshara Suriyarachchi and Rosalind Birt who are discussing Falls Prevention.
Dilshara and Rosalind are both Physiotherapists who work in a rehab hospital. Dilshara has 10 years’ experience and Rosalind over 30 years. Both of them find the work rewarding with enjoy helping to get people back on their feet and improving their confidence.

Websites

Falls Prevention - Home Exercises
Shows balance and strength exercises that are easy to do at home, with images displaying the movements.
Prevention of falls and fall-related injuries in children
This discusses the epidemiology, clinical features, and prevention of falls in children. Examines falls in home, falls from playground equipment etc.
Injury in Australia: Falls
This article by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHWW) reports on fall-related injury hospitalisations and deaths. The article provides a breakdown by age and sex, remoteness, socioeconomic status and severity of injuries.