Description

Mona Khanna gives her insight as well as provides advice on how to prevent injuries in the elderly.

Transcript

Rebecca Fox: Welcome to icyou on topic, I'm Rebecca Fox. As our population ages, preventing injury in the elderly has become more of an issue as more of these patients make emergency room visits. One study from George Washington University Medical Center projected that if the current trend continues almost 12 million elderly people will visit emergency rooms in 2013. That’s nearly double what it was in 2003. I just want to say thousands of these visits can be prevented by recognizing common household hazards. Icyou’s medical editor Dr. Mona Khanna joins us now with her insight on preventing injuries in the elderly. And Dr. Mona why are we seeing more injuries? Is it because the population is aging or is it because more people are experiencing injuries? Dr. Mona Khanna: Well, we’re very concerned about some of the numbers that we’re seeing in the healthcare field. We are looking at the over 65 population tripling between 1980 and 2030. That means we will have more than 65 million what we use to call in some—elderly by 2030. That’s a lot of people and that’s a lot of people who have chronic conditions who have significant decreases in their mobility and they post a lot of challenge to us all. We’ve all been frustrated by having elderly drivers on the road. They tend to drive slower and they're much, much more cautious. It’s just a sign of things to come. Rebecca Fox: What are some of the main health conditions that are more likely to be seen in people who are injury prone? Dr. Mona Khanna: Well, we have chronic health conditions which really will post a problem for some of the elderly because they will severely limit their ability to get things done. So, they’ll need help. This is really an issue that affects all of us, we all have parents. Let’s take for example a person who has diabetes. Who’s had diabetes for years decades now they’ve been monitoring and they have to continue to monitor it. They have to continue to check their blood sugars, continue to take their medications, continue to get their medications refilled, continue to see the doctor. Those are all things they have to continue at an older age when conceivably your independence is more limited, your mobility is more limited. Let’s think about the woman who’s had a previous hip fracture. She now has much more limited mobility even after the fracture has healed. And the psychological damage that has been done cannot be written of either. She will have to be much more cautious because her body almost won’t allow her to have kind of the freedom than the free range of motion that we do when we’re younger because she’s fallen, experience a hip fracture going through tremendous pain so we have patients who are going to have been living in just of heart failure for decades who need to watch, you now, their intake of water and watch their weight and need to continue to take their medications as well. So, all of these chronic conditions are going to be compounded by the number of people that are going to be facing that. Rebecca Fox: So, what’s specific hazards should we be watching for? Dr. Mona Khanna: Well, we have to look and we’re talking specifically not but inside the house because believe it or not that’s just as dangerous as outside of the house. We will look at floors, steps, kitchen, and bathroom. Let’s take at one at a time. So on the floors, you need to make sure that any throw rags that around, that they are secured to avoid slipping. Any objects that are in the waste such as papers and books and you know even steps tools another knickknacks, make sure a path is clear in most of the area. Same also for wires especially extension cords and other power wires so that folks can’t trip on them. Let’s move then to steps. Again, make sure the area is free of objects. There is no loose carpeting or loose covering on the steps like those plastic sheets. Someone can easily trip on that, there's no broken steps, nothing that’s uneven, that it’s well lit, very important as you get older because your eyesight just diminishes. And that there's hand rails when elderly folks have to climb serious in steps. In the kitchen, food or other items that are on high shelves now need to be brought down. We recommend kind of waist level but a small starch is okay too. And that step stool is available but it will be very stored and very secure on that one than those cheap little plastic ones. And last I'm on the bathroom. The bathtub should have a non slip mat, grab handles in the bathroom incase somebody needs help getting in and out or getting up and down from the toilet, there should be a lamp a very, very well lit area. And then the path to the bathroom from the bedroom should be clear and also easily able to well lit. And the reason for this is simple, I mean men who have benign prostatic hypertrophy or who have prostate cancer and women who have been through childbirth, a lot of them get up at night to go to the bathroom. They don’t want to put all of the lights on perhaps not to disturb their partner but that’s why it’s so important to keep that path clear. So, if you follow some of these few simple guidelines, we can greatly minimize the risks of accident and injury in the home which accidents and injuries in the elderly are very different from those and younger folks. They just don’t tend to heal us faster as well. Rebecca Fox: Are their any other additional strategies for people who are older to prevent injury? Dr. Mona Khanna: Actually, there is a lot. Older people should continue to remain active, exercise that improves your balance, your coordination and your strength. Very important because as we get old we actually lose the balance ability, water aerobics by the way is fabulous for someone who has debilitating osteoarthritis or rheumatoid arthritis. But it’s a great way to help develop your balance. Medications should be reviewed regularly with your doctors especially if you're put on the new medicine to make sure there is no drug interactions and always, always carry a list of medications. You don’t know when something will happen, be rushed to the hospital or you’ll need to know what medicines you’re on. Vision and hearing should be checked annually more often if there is a disease process going on. In some patients who have severe diabetes that is not under good tight control, they need to see their ophthalmologist every six months or so but we know there's decrements in hearing and we know that vision is impaired in the elderly too not only with cataracts and possibility of glaucoma but just in the natural aging process. You just, you don’t have the depth perception that you use to have. I can emphasize as enough, there should be bright lights in the whole house. It should be very, very well lit again to help counteract some of the vision decrements. And then when an elderly person is lying down in bed, they should make sure when they get up that they get up very slowly. When you get up fast your—we called the autonomic nervous system which you know helps regulates some of the fluids and the balance in your body. Again, not working quite as well as when you were younger. You have the tendency to maybe get dizzy, feel a little bit nauseated so get up slowly from bed perhaps sit on the side of the bed for a few seconds before getting out of bed. Rebecca Fox: Dr. Mona, these are great strategies. Thank you so much. And you can find many more videos on maximizing health and minimizing sickness in the elderly on icyou as well as more videos by Dr. Mona Khanna. For icyou on topic, I'm Rebecca Fox.