Long-Term Care Facilities Can Help Seniors From Falls & Abuse

For anyone who has been in the difficult situation of having an elderly parent that is unable to live on their own, it can be difficult to know how to go about finding help. Leaving older adults alone while one is at work can be dangerous and it can be difficult to vet and trust the caretakers one enlists for help. Thankfully, there are options that can put one’s mind at ease and ensure that older adults are well taken care of.

Long-term care facilities are designed to provide older adults with all of the care that they need while utilizing a staff comprised of trustworthy trained professionals. While it can be hard to think about the risk that seniors have of falling and being abused, it’s important to understand that these situations can happen and it’s important to be prepared. By tapping long-term care facilities for assistance, one can rest assured that the seniors that they care about are being properly treated and taken care of.

Here is how long-term care facilities can help seniors from falls and abuse.

Preventing Falls and Abuse

Falls are one of the biggest threats to the health and well-being of older adults. Given the frailty of older adults, falls can affect them in ways that may never be remedied and can have a dramatically negative impact on their quality of life. Given the severe nature of older adults falling, long-term care facilities take a number of thorough precautions to ensure the well-being of their residents.

While many people are unaware of this disheartening fact, many older adults are abused by caretakers and those around them. Oftentimes, these senior victims are unable to report or communicate this to anyone, making it an extremely difficult form of mistreatment to detect. Long-term care facilities are made up of professional staff that is trained to prevent elderly abuse and detect signs of it.

Having a clear understanding of the strategies that long-term care facilities use to prevent their residents from experiencing fall-related injuries and abuse can help make apparent the overwhelmingly positive value and impact of long-term care facilities for seniors. Here are some abuse prevention and fall prevention strategies used in nursing homes.

Adequate Staffing

When long-term care facilities are understaffed, many residents may be left unsupervised for extended amounts of time. When this happens, residents are at a greater risk of falling, sustaining severe injuries and being abused. Accordingly, long-term care facilities make it a point to always have an adequate amount of staff to ensure that all residents are being appropriately monitored.

The more trained professionals there are in a facility, the less likely a resident will be to fall or be abused. As such, long-term care facilities can provide one with the peace of mind that older adults are being adequately monitored and surrounded by professionals.

Assessing Each Individual Resident

In any long-term care facility, different residents will have different levels of risk in regard to falling. Professionals in nursing homes will make it a point to assess residents and determine which ones need the closest supervision to prevent falls. Some factors that long-term care facility staff will assess include a resident’s level of mobility and mental state.

As one can imagine, having the most vulnerable residents monitored closely can hugely decrease the risk of severe falls happening in long-term care facilities.

While falling is one risk that long-term care facilities take into account, they may also think about abuse. If a particular resident has a mental status that is greatly compromised, they are at a greater risk of being mistreated. This is because they likely won’t be able to communicate to other staff members when they have been mistreated in some way. As such, long-term care facilities may make it a point to monitor these residents for signs of abuse such as bruises.

Having Procedures in Place

One of the biggest advantages that long-term care facilities offer as opposed to homecare is a set of procedures in place to both prevent and respond to urgent situations. When it comes to preventing falls, facilities will typically have beds and wheelchairs that are suited to the heights of residents to decrease the risk of this happening.

In addition, in the disheartening event of an actual fall, the staff of long-term care facilities knows exactly how to respond given their pre-determined procedures.

When it comes to preventing and addressing the abuse of older adults, long-term care facilities likely also have specific procedures in place. These may include understanding the types of abuse in a relationship between residents and staff and also knowing signs to look out for. Given these thorough procedures, long-term care facilities present themselves as an amazing option for keeping seniors safe and out of harm’s way.

Long-Term Care Facilities Keep Seniors Safe

While no one likes thinking about seniors they care about getting older, it’s important to provide older adults with the care that they need. Inadequate home care has an increased potential to result in seniors falling or being abused. Conversely, long-term care facilities are staffed with professionals trained to prevent these disheartening situations from happening.

Those looking for a great care option for seniors in their life can find what they’re looking for in long-term care facilities.