NFPA Journal - Summer 2022 - 80

Falls & Fires
HAND IN HAND
DEMOGRAPHIC TRENDS ARE DRIVING THE GROWING PROBLEMS
OF FALLS AND FIRES AMONG OLDER ADULTS
As the number of adults
65 and over increases in
the United States...
Number of adults aged 65 and 54 million
over in 2019, or 16% of the
nation's population
Number of adults aged 65 81 million
and over projected by 2040,
or nearly 22% of the nation's
population
...so do the number
of falls and the injuries
associated with those
falls...
Number of falls r 36 millioneported in
2018, resulting in 8 million
injuries
52 million
Number of reported falls
projected for 2030, resulting
in 12 million injuries
...with the impact
of those increases
already being felt.
Older adults tr3 millioneated
annually in US
emergency rooms
from accidental falls
$50 billion
Cost of treating older
adult fall injuries in the
US per year
35%
Sources: US Census, Centers for Disease Control, NFIRS, NFPA
Increase in " lift assist "
calls to US fire
departments from
2014 to 2017
educators understand that prevention
programs will play a vital role as the
population ages and seniors increasingly
spend their later years alone
in their homes. If they could prevent
even a fraction of the falls and fires
that are expected in decades to come,
many thousands of lives could be
saved. On top of that, emergency agencies
may be saved from being crushed
under the weight of demand.
Despite current trends, none of the
educators I spoke with felt discouraged,
and they certainly don't shy
away from the challenge. Every day
they see firsthand the impact of the
work.
In Saskatoon, where the fire department
lifts, on average, more than
three people per day, Krahn told me
that statistics don't begin to tell the
whole story. She rattled off story after
story about frequent elderly fallers
who ceased calling for lift-assists as
soon as firefighters flipped a mattress,
or added handrails to a bathtub, or
changed some detail like a loose rug
or wayward cord. She spoke about
her monthly meetings with the local
health authority officials, and brainstorming
sessions with doctors and
partner organizations-efforts that
80 | NFPA JOURNAL * SUMMER 2022
have helped individual seniors go from
falling almost weekly, to living happy
and healthy lives.
The story is the same in Louisville.
Anderson said that her fire department's
fire prevention bureau began
delivering
meals twice
weekly to
seniors after
the local Meals
on Wheels
program lost
nearly all its
volunteers
due to COVID.
Even though
the pandemic
cancelled all
of Louisville's
Remembering
When group
presentations,
nfpa.org/
fallsandfires
Read a report by the
Fire Protection
Research Foundation
on the impact of medications
on fall and fire
risks for older adults.
Listen to an NFPA
Podcast featuring
fire safety researcher
Jamie McAllister on
medications, falls,
and fires.
See a state-by-state
summary on falls and
fall-related deaths
from the Centers for
Disease Control.
these frequent visits to deliver meals
helped fire prevention officials build
relationships and trust with the city's
most vulnerable seniors. This not only
allowed officials to keep better tabs
on the residents' needs, but it also
put them in a better position to help
residents make substantive changes in
their homes to improve safety.
Source: NFPA
One can only imagine how many
more lift-assist calls and serious injuries
from falls would have happened in
Louisville and Saskatoon if it weren't
for these efforts.
Other positives from the program
were more unexpected and even
harder to quantify, Krahn told me.
Perhaps most interestingly, even as
lift calls continue to rise, morale at
the Saskatoon Fire Department has
improved dramatically since it started
its Remembering When efforts in 2017,
she said. The program offered the
weary responders hope.
" Firefighters now regularly thank
me and tell me they are going on
fewer lift-assist calls. Even though
they're not, I never tell them differently, "
Krahn told me with a bemused
smile. " Before we started this program,
the firefighters would be so
frustrated by the fact that they were
lifting somebody over and over again
and there was nothing they could do
about it. Now, there is a mechanism in
place to improve these residents' lives.
Firefighters are good people who are
motivated by helping others. They just
need the tools to do it. "
JESSE ROMAN is senior editor at NFPA Journal.
Older adults also
make up an increasingly
larger share
of US fire fatalities.
18%
Percentage of the overall
number of fire deaths involving
older adults in 1980
36%
Percentage of the overall
number of fire deaths involving
older adults in 2018
http://www.nfpa.org/fallsandfires http://www.nfpa.org/fallsandfires
NFPA Journal - Summer 2022

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