Acceptability and compliance with the use of hip protectors in elderly patients with dementia admitted to a psychogeriatric unit
To detect the percentage of patients with dementia admitted to a psychogeriatric department, who have a high risk of falls, and to evaluate acceptance and compliance with hip protectors during their stay in hospital and 2 weeks and 3 months after discharge. We performed a hospital-based prospective...
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Published in | Revista española de geriatría y gerontología Vol. 43; no. 6; pp. 346 - 352 |
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Main Authors | , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | Spanish |
Published |
Spain
01.11.2008
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Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | To detect the percentage of patients with dementia admitted to a psychogeriatric department, who have a high risk of falls, and to evaluate acceptance and compliance with hip protectors during their stay in hospital and 2 weeks and 3 months after discharge.
We performed a hospital-based prospective cohort study. Risk of falling was evaluated on the basis of immediate bipedal standing instability or abnormal semi-tandem posture, a get-up-and-go test time of more than 20 seconds, or clinical judgement. Compliance during hospital stay was evaluated through nursing records and compliance outside hospital by telephone interviews at 15 days and 3 months after discharge.
A total of 115 patients consecutively admitted to the psychogeriatric department of the Santa Creu Hospital in Vic were assessed. Sixty patients (52.2%) were excluded from the study, the main reason being dependence on another person for walking. Of the 55 patients included, 44 (80.0%) had a high risk of falls and were candidates for hip protectors. In-hospital compliance was 80.5% (95% CI: 65.1-91.2). The most common cause of non-compliance was removal of the hip protector by the patient. Compliance after discharge was 64.5% (95% CI: 45.4-80.8) at 2 weeks and 57.1% (95% CI: 28.9-82.4) at 3 months.
A high risk of falling was found in a large percentage of patients with dementia who were not dependent on others for walking. Compliance was not a problem in the use of hip protectors in a high-risk population in the hospital-admission setting but was weaker in the community setting. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-2 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-1 content type line 23 |
ISSN: | 0211-139X |