Types of Fall Prevention Solutions

In our previous blog we talked about what fall prevention was. In this blog, we will be looking at different fall prevention solutions in the industry and see where and how they are mostly utilized today. We will also try to explain how effective each one of them are. So let's dive in.

Fall prevention solutions are not one size fits all. Different acute and post-acute care facilities use different solutions to target fall prevention in their respected communities. All in all, fall prevention can be split into two categories: vision-based, and pressure-based. We will first start with the vision-based fall prevention solutions.

1. VISION-BASED SOLUTIONS

Vision-based solutions, as you can also tell by its name, use a kind of sensor or camera to detect movement to either send an alert before the fall happens or after the fall event happens. This totally depends on each company and their technology. However, in today's fall prevention industry, the most effective solution in this category is the one that alerts staff BEFORE the actual fall event happens. This gives staff to act quickly and assist their patient, so the fall never happens. This way staff can prevent their patients from getting injured or even worse, left with permanent or irreversible damage to their health.

Preventing a fall before it happens is by far the best solution on the market. At first, it might also seem that this option would cost the most, but when considering an injury or hospitalization, this will not be nearly as costly.

Vision-based solutions are most widely used in acute-care facilities, so that would be hospitals and healthcare facilities. They require more supervision on their high fall-risk patients, and this is why they use it the most. However, this solution is also used in post-acute care facilities as well.

2. PRESSURE-BASED SOLUTIONS

Pressure-based solutions are the ones that usually requires some pressure on the sensor to detect a movement. This solution is most widely used in hospital beds where a patients lays down on the bed. There are usually levels of intensities or sensitivity levels to choose from. This can be adjusted for each patient, since each of them move differently when laying in bed. This sensor detects movement by the pressure applied from patient's weight, and when it exceeds a certain threshold, the nurse staff is notified to attend a patient's room. The nurse attends the room and assists patient before they fall.

One downside of this solution is that it is not as effective and sensitive as vision-based solutions. 

This solution is mostly used in acute-care settings, as this sensor is mostly comes equipped with a hospital bed.

We have reviewed the most common fall prevention solutions in this blog without going into too much depth. There are also certain subcategories of vision-based solutions where patients get constant supervision from a telesitter, but we will be talking about telesitters in a future blog in more depth. Stay in tune for the next blog!