HOME as it turns out, can be more hazardous than the outdoors for an elderly person.
A study found that almost six out of 10 injuries sustained by the elderly occurred at home and were due to accidental/environmental incidents (slip and fall trip and fall, or dark surroundings) which may be preventable.
Conducted by the National University Hospital (NUH) on 720 patients aged 65 years and older and published in the Singapore Medical Journal last year the study also found that falls were the major cause of trauma in more than eight out of 10 cases.
Changi General Hospital (CGH) has seen its number of fall-related elderly patients increase more than five times in the last two years - from 41 in 2007 to 223 last year.
It started its Falls Clinic in 2005 to assess, treat and educate the elderly living nearby who have ex-perienced falls or have problems in keeping their balance.
Dr Vina Doshi, a consultant geriatrician who runs the clinic, said besides treatment and education, her team looks at research and training medical professionals about falls among the elderly.
"The demand for this service has increased as family doctors and care givers are now more aware that it is not natural for the elderly to just fall."
With Singapore's rapidly ageing population, other public hospitals have also set up Falls Clinics.
On average, Tan Tock Seng Hospital's clinic, which opened in 1998, sees about 170 new cases a year - usually referred by polyclinics general practitioners the emergency department and other specialists.
Hospitals have also taken steps to prevent patients from falling while staying at the hospital. CGH sees a fall rate of 1.03 falls per 1,000 patient days. NUH's fall rate is less than 1 per 1,000 days.
Dr Reshma A. Merchant, a geriatrician at NUH, said the hospital has established a workflow for fall prevention, which staff members are trained to follow. "We have modified our environment by installing low beds hospital-wide rather than just in the geriatric wards and having nurses at most of the ward cubicles continuously observing patients under their care," she said.
Tan Tock Seng Hospital went a step further by introducing a night-sitter programme where volunteers watch over fall risk patients and assist them.
Speaking to The Straits Times, Ms Yong Limin, a senior physiotherapist who was key in setting up the Mobility and Falls Management service at the Singapore General Hospital, said the next step for her team is setting up Web cams in homes.
"We want the elderly to be independent and not paralysed by fear because of one bad fall With a Web cam, we would be able to monitor them or get to them in time," she said
Dr Doshi said it is predicted that Asia will experience an exponential rise in the number of hip fractures due to falls within the next decade.