Home Recreational Safety: How to Keep Your Family Safe

PART A. 

The resources present in my Community include; technical, finances, and staff supplements. In this assessment, funds are essential for my community assessment, and in this area, there are various sources of financing. The Community is, in itself, a crucial resource for this assessment. Without the presence of this Community, conducting the community assessment would prove difficult (Department of Health, 2010). The Community provides the informant resource whereby the informants will help in relaying the current health situation in the Community. Local health officers, business leaders, and civic leaders are crucial in conducting this assessment.  

Strengths and Weaknesses of the Community 

            In determining the state of healthcare in the community, various strengths and weaknesses can be derived in this community. The strengths in the sector include; proper food labeling in the local groceries, availability of walking paths, which ensure that members of the community are safe. The community also shows strengths in adherence to health policies in both schools and other public facilities. 

            The community also depicts concerns in numerous ways. Falls among older people are high in this community, and similarly, the community lacks an effective communication channel to air health concerns. Emergency issues in the area take long before being aired to the relevant authorities. Inefficient feeding programs for the elderly in the regions and lack of safe drinking water risks the lives of the society.  

Barriers to Implementation 

            The community has various barriers to the implementation of healthcare plans. Most people in the area live in poverty; they can’t pay for the implemented services (RHI Hub, 2020). The community’s social and cultural norms could be of great hindrance to the implementation of some plans. Educational disparities also limit the extent to which the plans can be implemented. Inadequate physical activity options also limit the accessibility of people to healthcare facilities. 

            In solving these barriers, it is crucial to determine the source of the obstacles and putting measures that lower the barriers. As stated in RHI Hub (2020), most of these barriers can be solved through the availability of adequate personnel in the community health sector. For instance, physical activity limitations can be addressed through staff who provide healthcare services to patients in their houses. In solving educational and language disparities, the healthcare system can offer a diverse workforce to meet community demands. Social and cultural barriers can be addressed through diversity in the healthcare workforce.  

PART B. 

            Falls among the elderly are attributed to various factors, with chronic health issues leading in causing these falls. Heart diseases, low blood pressure, and dementia lead to numerous falls among the elderly (Abraham & Cimino-Fiallos, 2019). These chronic diseases cause dizziness among the elderly, who have weak immune systems, thus subjecting them to falls. Additionally, the elderly lack enough energy to resist these diseases; therefore, they are regularly subjected to falls. The elderly are more likely to have impairments, which contribute to falls. Visions among the elderly are weak, which implies that they are more susceptible to hitting stationary objects and falling. Conclusively, the elderly have vulnerable immune systems, hence are more susceptible to attacks by diseases. Inflammation, for instance, affects the elderly, causing imbalance, thus leading to falls. In this community, inaccessible walk-ways lead to numerous falls among the elderly. In these foot-ways, there are objects which could be the leading cause of these falls for the patients. The falls are highly influenced by the nature of the footways, whereby the poor condition of the roads causes the falls. There is a considerable knowledge gap in this area, and research should include determining how these pathways can be improved to ensure the falls reduce.  

            According to the WHO (2018), falls among the elderly present the second leading risk factor among the elderly. In this report, falls are among the leading cause of unintentional injury or accidental deaths. WHO (2018) reports that more than 600,000 people die from falls globally, with 80% of these being recorded in middle and low-income states. The report also shows that adults above the age of 66 years are the most hit group in these falls. NCOA, (2019) reports that an adult gets treatment for falls in the US emergency centers in every 11 seconds, and dies in every 19 minutes, an adult dies from fall. NCOA (2019) shows that in 2015, falls among the elderly cost US citizens $50 billion. According to the CDC (2019), $29 billion, $12 billion, and $9billion is paid to Medicare, Private practitioners, and Medicaid, respectively. These payments are made to cover both fatal and non-fatal- falls among the elderly. 

Figure 1 : Cost of fall among the elderly in the US (CDC, 2019). 

Nurses in the community healthcare have various roles and management techniques. Facilitating new projects and plans helps in effecting these changes, while research leads to better strategies for implementing the changes. Footpaths positively affect the falls among the elderly in this community. With the effective and efficient design of footways, the community can achieve great success in preventing falls among the elderly. Some social issues like disability increase effect fall negatively, with disabled people being at higher risks of falling. Age, according to WHO, (2018), affects falls adversely. Older people are more susceptible to falls when compared to young people. In gender, males are prone to fatal falls leading to death, while women are prone to no-fatal falls. In preventing these falls, some community enhancements should be done. Older people must wear shows with adequate grip, to avoid sliding in slippery grounds. Within the pathways, side grills could be critical in curbing falls among the elderly.  

Strategic Plan 

Strategic Theme: Prevention of Falls among the elderly. 

Goals 

Goal 1: To reduce falls among older people in the US by 3% within six months.  

Goal 2: To attain safe pathways by 2021. 

Goal 3: To sensitize the elderly within three months on ways to prevent falls. 

Goal 4: To educate the community on how to help the elderly avoid falling by 2021.  

Strategies in achieving these goals. 

            These goals will be achieved through collaboration with the community to attain the best strategies for implementing them. In educating the society, a diverse workforce will be liable for ensuring that all the people understand preventing falls among the elderly. The sensitization program will consider the diverse people in the community, whereby families will be helped in coming –up with plans that enable them to cater to the elderly. Conclusively, these goals will be attained through the collective action of the community. With collaboration between all the stakeholders in the community, falls among the elderly will be reduced to a great extent. 

Conclusion 

            In conclusion, falls among the elderly present a massive challenge to community health. In most communities, the elderly live independently, thus putting them at risk of falling while performing their daily chores. To prevent these falls, it is critical to consider the strategic plan developed in this paper. Pathways play a crucial role in reducing the trends in falls among the elderly. With rough floors and grills on the side of walkways, the number of falls among the elderly can reduce drastically. Racks help provide support to the elderly, while rough floors help maintain grip to avoid slipping. Sensitization of the elderly involves giving them information on how to prevent falls. Community education is critical in this field because it helps ensure that the society awards older people sufficient support to avoid falling.  

References 

Abraham, K. M. & Cimino-Fiallos. N. (2019) Falls in the Elderly: Causes, Injuries, and Management. Medscape. Retrieved from, https://reference.medscape.com/slideshow/falls-in-the-elderly-6012395#2 

CDC, (2019). Home Recreational Safety: Falls Data. CDC. Retrieved from, https://www.cdc.gov/homeandrecreationalsafety/falls/fallcost.html 

Department of Health, (2010). Securing Resources. Department of Health. Retrieved from, https://www.health.ny.gov/statistics/chac/secure.htm 

NCOA, (2019). Falls Prevention Facts. NCOA. Retrieved from, https://www.ncoa.org/news/resources-for-reporters/get-the-facts/falls-prevention-facts/ 

RHI Hub, (2020). Barriers to Health Promotion and Disease Prevention in Rural Areas. RHI Hub. Retrieved from, https://www.ruralhealthinfo.org/toolkits/health- promotion/1/barriers 

WHO, (2018). Falls. WHO. Retrieved from, https://www.who.int/news-room/fact- sheets/detail/falls