Estate Planning

The Slippery Edge of the Slope

By Hull & Hull LLP

As a former manager at an assisted living facility, I was often (too often) witness to the devastating aftermath of falls in the elderly.  As an administrator, the direct effects of a fall are obvious and measurable.  According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, over 1.8 million Americans over age 65 are injured annually in falls.  A recent New York Times article indicated that 433,000 of those will be admitted to hospital and 15,800 will die as a direct result of the fall.  In Canada, estimates suggest that 1 in 3 elderly people living in the community will experience at least one fall a year.  The Canadian Institute for Health Information (2002) reports that 75% of in-hospital deaths were due to injuries from a fall.

What are far more difficult to track and quantify are the indirect consequences of a fall, from which many elderly also do not survive.

Post-fall, in the hospital environs, an aged person is subject to the complications of the fall.  They are immobilized in bed, usually catheterized, and are prone to infection, muscle atrophy and pneumonia, which extends the length of their stay in the hospital (generally 11-14 days according to Health Canada).  When they are eventually discharged, whether to their own home or to a care facility, they are terrified of falling again.  A downward spiral of loss of confidence, social isolation, nutritional risk, psychological fragility, and a depressing awareness of their vulnerability often ensues.  Any underlying co-morbid health conditions (diabetes, respiratory illness or cardiac conditions) will dramatically accelerate this downward spiral.

By the year 2031, one in five Canadians will be over the age of 65, compared with one in eight in 2001, and the number of people over the age of 80 will double over the same time frame (The Demographic Time Bomb).  The increasing number of falls in the elderly is an emerging public health crisis and thus fall prevention initiatives and more facilitative access to community-based supports for the elderly must be critical components of provincial and nationwide health care planning.

Jennifer Hartman (Guest blogger)

Full post as published by Toronto Estate Law Blog on November 26, 2008 (boomark / email).