Abstract
The patients with neurological deficits, such as hemiplegia, spatial ignorance, and disorientation, are more likely to be in the high risk category and it was conducted that the fall prevention program is required in neurosurgery ward. However, up to date, there have been few attempts to focus the prevention of fall injures of them. Our prior study clarified characteristic risk factors of those patients. Based on the results, we developed a new fall risk assessment score sheet to prevent falls and injuries, especially focusing to the neurological patients with a right hemisphere disorder, at wheel chair level and at miction on their daily lives.
The sample consisted of 583 patients who were admitted to the neurosurgical ward of our hospital between January and December 2001. All patients were scored at admission and they were divided into 3 groups according to the degrees of the points for preventive management. Effectiveness of fall risk assessment score sheet was retrospectively examined by 1) the comparison in the total score of the patients with and without fall and injury, 2) reduction of the incidence of fall and injury.
As a result, the average of fall risk assessment score sheet for the patients with fall was significantly higher (13.25 ± 3.08 points) than that for the patients without fall (8.59 ± 4.63points) (z＝4.96, p＜0.01) And there was a reduction of the incidence of fall (r＝－0.17).
In conclusion, fall risk assessment score sheet can predict and prevent fall on neurosurgical patients.
