Falling (accident)
| Falling | |
|---|---|
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| Falling is a normal experience for young children, but falling from a significant height or onto a hard surface can be dangerous. | |
| Classification and external resources | |
| ICD-10 | Xxx.x |
| ICD-9-CM | xxx |
Falling is the second leading cause of accidental death worldwide and is a major cause of personal injury, especially for the elderly.Falls in older adults are an important class of preventable injuries. Builders, electricians, miners, and painters are occupations with high rates of fall injuries.
About 155 million new cases of a significant fall occurred in 2013. These unintentional falls resulted in 556,000 deaths up from 341,000 deaths in 1990.
In elderly, even falls from standing position to flat ground may cause serious injuries. Stephen Lord at the University of New South Wales studied 80,000 elderly persons in Australia and found that the risk of falling increases for any who are taking multiple prescription medications and for all who are taking psychoactive drugs. This increased risk was demonstrated through the use of a variety of balance and reaction time tests. Older men when matched with women of identical height, weight, and age, on average, performed measurably better in all of the balance and reaction time tests.
In the occupational setting, falling incidents are commonly referred to as slips, trips, and falls (STFs). Falls from elevation hazards are present at almost every jobsite, and many workers are exposed to these hazards daily. As such, falls are an important topic for occupational safety and health services. Any walking/working surface could be a potential fall hazard. An unprotected side or edge which is 6 feet (1.8 m) or more above a lower level should be protected from falling by the use of a guard rail system, safety net system, or personal fall arrest system. These hazardous exposures exist in many forms, and can be as seemingly innocuous as changing a light bulb from a step ladder to something as high-risk as installing bolts on high steel at 200 feet (61 m) in the air. In 2000, 717 workers died of injuries caused by falls from ladders, scaffolds, buildings, or other elevations. More recent data in 2011, found that STFs contributed to 14% of all workplace fatalities in the United States that year.
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