Do Alarm Devices Reduce Falls in the Elderly Population?

Abstract

It is plausible to assume that healthcare practitioners do not know to what extent bed/body alarms could reduce falls when compared to other fall prevention measures. Thus, the purpose of this study was to determine the following: Do bed/body alarms reduce the incidence of falls and/or subsequent injuries in a facility that uses such devices, as compared to a facility in which no bed/body alarms were used among the elderly over a 5-month period? A retrospective chart review was conducted in 2 homogenous long-term care facilities. The sample size was N = 160 across the 2 facilities and included 80 residents at each facility. Analysis of the data indicated that there was a total of 94 falls in the facility that used the bed/body alarms, and a total of 70 falls in the facility that did not use the bed/body alarms. Further analysis of the data indicated that there was a slightly higher mean for falls with injuries within the facility that did use the bed/body alarms (M = 18.800) as compared to a mean of 14.0 for the facility that did not use the bed/body alarms (p = .001). The analysis of data suggested that the use of bed/body alarms did not reduce falls within the elderly population. However, since response time to the alarms was not noted, it is plausible to assume that reduction in falls could have been achieved if response time was also studied as an intervening variable.