Preventing Falls in Long Term Care Setting Essay

Preventing Falls in Long Term Care Setting - Essay Example This study explores the prevalence and significance of falls in the long term care setting before discussing five nursing interventions that can be instituted to manage the problem. This is followed by an appraisal of the anticipated outcomes after implementation of the five strategies. The study draws from Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario (RNAO) Best Practice Guideline (BPG) and a number of peer reviewed scholarly articles. The Prevalence and Significance of falls in the Long Term Care Setting According to McCarthy, Adedokun and Fairchild (2011) present statistics that capture the seriousness of falls in the long term care setting. A nursing home containing 100 beds reports between 100 and 200 falls among the residents annually. Elderly patients in the long term care setting are three times as likely to experience falls in comparison to their community-dwelling counterparts. The scholars’ report further state that falls are the leading cause of fatal and non-f atal injuries to individuals over the age of 65. RNAO (2005) reports 84.8% of all hospital injury admissions of individuals above the age of 65 are the result of falling. One in ten of emergency room visits among the elderly arises due to serious falls, while the incidences increase proportionately to age. Ferris (2008) attributes the disparity between long term care residents and community dwellers to the likelihood of having more comorbidities and advanced levels of diseases such as dementia. The significance of falls in the long term care setting is further underpinned by the contribution of falls to morbidity and mortality, decline in functional disposition and depression among other impacts on the elderly. Another perspective of the issue shows that a good number of falls may go unreported, which limits the capacity of data seekers to correctly capture the contribution of falls to elderly residents’ morbidity and mortality. Falls potentially cause more serious impacts an d implications than the grim statistics presented. Thus, falls in the long term care setting are an issue of great significance in case the outcomes of long term care settings are to improve. Nursing Interventions to Prevent Falls in the Long Term Care Setting The seriousness of the issue of falls among residents of long term care homes makes it necessary to institute evidence-based and informed prevention strategies. The Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario (RNAO) Best Practice Guideline (BPG) provides evidence-based strategies to prevent falls and thus will be the focus of this study. The first prevention strategy entails sensitizing the residents on the importance of vitamin D supplementation among other dietary, lifestyle and treatment choices for osteoporosis (RNAO, 2005). There exists sufficient evidence showing that decline in bone density among the elderly is directly associated to increased risk of falls. Elderly patients may have higher risks of vitamin D defic iency due to limited exposure to sunlight and skin changes associated with ageing. Bischoff-Ferrari et al. (2009) support RNAO’s position through their study indicating that vitamin D supplementation significantly reduces patient’s risks of falling. Their meta-analytic evidence indicates a reduction of 22% in falls among patients in the healthcare setting. The second prevention strategy involves assessing and modifying the long term care setting environment as a component of fall prevention strate

Migration, remittance and livelyhood Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 15000 words

Migration, remittance and livelyhood - Essay Example Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1Background Migration is a key element in the history of humanity in terms of continued existence and it has always gone hand in hand with the expansion of human race. On the other hand, over the years, the awareness of global migration and its impact to expansion has evolved, because of the growing recognition of the importance of remittance. The high quantity of migrant remittance flows to rising countries has guided to both pessimistic and optimistic views on the impacts of remittance. A wide range of literature and research has been available discussing the issue of remittance and its implications on expansion and migration. On the other hand, research to date has primarily concentrated on the impact of remittance to financial development, the connection between migration and remittance and so on. However, there remains an important gap examining the various processes of sending remittance and the wider problems remittance poses. The incomes that migrant s send home to their relatives, mainly global migrants, have expanded in current years to levels, which exceed direct foreign investments and official growth assistance. The World Bank estimated that worldwide remittances increased from about $85.6 billion in the year 2000 to about $167 billion in the year 2004 as contrasted to the direct foreign investment and development assistance. Presently, the bank estimates that global remittances reached about $318 billion in the year 2007, an amount of about $240 billion of that went to developing countries. Whereas potentially of similar importance, the quantity of internal remittances, sent mainly by urban migrants back to rural societies of their origin, as money or kind, are not commonly recorded and are hard to estimate. Extra migrants move internally than worldwide, and their earnings are inclined to be lower. Despite troubles of amount, the clearly huge amounts of remittances sent by global and internal migrants have attracted a lot of researchers to observe their impact on different aspects of growth. Recently, a growing sense of awareness has arisen with regard to the size and impact of informal remittances. Whereas formal remittances denote those remittances that enter a country during official banking channels, the informal remittances contain those money transfers that happen through private channels. Such private transfers contain remittances brought home by relatives, friends and even the migrant herself/himself. Whereas formal remittances to increasing countries have totalled to more than $167 billion in the year 2005, the point of informal remittances is practically unknown for the reason that they be inclined to flow through private channels. Estimates of the range of informal remittances differ widely, ranging from about 35 to 250 percent of formal remittances. This paper aims to fill this research gap by talking about the