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Elder Care News
NIHSeniorHealth Website Adds Information on
Preventing Falls
Each year 1.6 million seniors go to the emergency
room due to falls
October 17, 206 - Each year, more than 1.6 million
older Americans go to the emergency room for fall-related injuries.
Among older adults, falls are the number one cause of fractures,
hospital admissions for trauma, loss of independence and injury-related
deaths, but falls are not an inevitable part of life, even as a person
gets older. Information about the risks of falling and what you can do
to prevent falls has just been added to NIHSeniorHealth.gov.
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Elder Care News |
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This Web site (www.NIHSeniorHealth.gov),
which was designed especially for older adults, is a joint effort of the
National Institute on Aging (NIA) and the National Library of Medicine (NLM),
which are part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Falls can have devastating effects in older
people, says Richard J. Hodes, M.D., director of the NIA, which
developed the content for the falls topic on NIHSeniorHealth.
A simple fall can cause a serious fracture of the
arm, hand, ankle or hip. Only half of older adults hospitalized for a
broken hip return home or live on their own after the injury, which is
why prevention is so important.
Information about taking care of your health,
reducing hazards at home, exercising and making other lifestyle changes
to reduce the risk of falling is now easily accessible on
NIHSeniorHealth.
Older Americans increasingly are turning to the
Internet for health information. In fact, 66 percent of wired seniors
surf for health and medical information when they go online.
NIHSeniorHealth, which is based on the latest
research on cognition and aging, features short, easy-to-read segments
of information in a variety of formats, including large-print type
sizes, open-captioned videos and even an audio version.
Additional topics coming soon to the site include
clinical trials, nutrition and skin cancer. The site links to
MedlinePlus, NLMs premier, more detailed site for consumer health
information.
Editor's Notes:
The NIA leads the federal effort supporting and
conducting research on aging and the health and well-being of older
people. The NLM, the world's largest library of the health sciences,
creates and sponsors Web-based health information resources for the
public and professionals. Both are components of the NIH in Bethesda,
Md.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) The
Nation's Medical Research Agency includes 27 Institutes and Centers
and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
It is the primary federal agency for conducting and supporting basic,
clinical and translational medical research, and it investigates the
causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For
more information about NIH and its programs, visit
www.nih.gov.
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