News Release                              For Immediate Release

                                                                                                                         July 15, 2009

Help Improve Safety for Seniors!

Let us know if you have experienced a fall recently.

The high rate of senior’s falls is the subject of a Seniors Safety Study joint research project by the Grey Bruce Health Unit and the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Western Ontario. Falls in our senior population are a serious public health problem. On average each year, 34% of seniors living at home and 43% of nursing home residents suffer a fall.

We need to hear from seniors who have had a fall recently. We would like to talk with seniors as soon as we can following a fall and ideally within a week of the fall.

The Seniors Falls Investigation Methodology takes a broad systems approach to the investigation of falls. An integrated safety investigation methodology, used by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, was adapted and applied to investigate falls of seniors living in the community. The research collects comprehensive data on causes and contributing factors to falls and provides the framework and techniques for an analysis that goes beyond the immediate cause of falls. The study will identify safety deficiencies, including details about the underlying safety problems, and provide recommendations to advance safety. The project will incorporate information about falls from multiple sites, into a comprehensive, anonymous, web-based Falls Database.

Participants will gain a better understanding of the factors that contributed to their fall. For each incident, safety actions will be proposed to prevent future harm and to mitigate an identified hazard. This study has the potential to advance seniors safety in general by:

• Detection of causes and contributing factors of falls and subsequent injuries
• Identification of safety deficiencies
• Recommendations to eliminate those deficiencies
• Reporting findings back to the health care system to initiate safety action.

If you are 65 or older, live in Grey Bruce, and have had a fall recently you are invited to take part. You will participate in several interviews, and with your permission, your family, your doctor and witnesses of the fall will be contacted to gather additional information. To participate, call the Seniors Safety Study at 519-376-9420, leave a message including your name and phone number with the phone mailbox and we will call you back the same day.

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For more information:

Sarah Milne

Health Promoter, Chronic Disease and Injury Prevention

Grey Bruce Health Unit

519-376-9420 or 1-800-263-3456 ext. 1528

s.milne@publichealthgreybruce.on.ca