Falls risk assessment in older patients in hospital
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Falls risk assessment in older patients in hospital

Maria Matarese Associate professor, Unit of Nursing Science, Department of Medicine, Campus Bio-Medico of Rome University, Rome, Italy
Dhurata Ivziku Geriatics nurse, Geriatrics ward, Campus Bio-Medico of Rome University Hospital, Rome, Italy

Falls are the most frequent adverse event reported in hospitals, usually affecting older patients. All hospitals in NHS organisations will develop risk prevention policies that include falls risk assessment. Falls risk assessment involves the use of risk screening tools, aimed at identifying patients at increased risk of falls, and risk assessment tools, which identify a patient's risk factors for falls. Various risk screening tools have been used in clinical practice, but no single tool is able to identify all patients at risk of falls or to accurately exclude all those who are not at risk of falls. Guidelines recommend that patients aged 65 years and over who are admitted to hospital should be considered at high risk of falls and that a multifactorial falls risk assessment should be performed. Therefore, falls risk assessment tools should be used to identify the risk factors for each inpatient aged 65 years or over, in order to determine the most appropriate care plan for falls prevention and to maximise patient mobility and independence.

Nursing Standard. 30, 48, 53-63. doi: 10.7748/ns.2016.e10345

Correspondence

m.matarese@unicampus.it

Peer review

All articles are subject to external double-blind peer review and checked for plagiarism using automated software

Conflict of interest

None declared

Received: 17 November 2015

Accepted: 14 December 2015

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