NCLEX Reviewer | Accident Prevention

• The main causes of accidental death in order of frequency are motor vehicle accidents, falls, poisoning, drowning, fires, and burns.
• The type of accident for which an individual is at the greatest risk is related to his/her normal growth and development.
• Most falls occur at home and are the number one cause of hospital admission for trauma among older adults; illness, medications, alcohol use as well as environmental factors cause these falls.
• Over the age of 65, hip fractures account for most admissions for trauma.
• Accident prevention requires client teaching and removal of dangers.


AGE-RELATED ISSUES
School-age children
• Children must stay away from strangers.
• They must use protective equipment when participating in sports.
• Bicycles and scooter safety: Children should wear helmets, ride proper size bicycles, and know rules of road.

Adolescents (risk takers)
• Car safety: Adolescents are involved in more accidents than any other age group. They should wear seat belts, comply with driving rules, never drive when drunk, and never ride with anyone who is impaired.
• They are likely to experiment with drugs and this increases risk of all other types of accidents.


Adults
• Adults should adopt healthy lifestyle habits, techniques of stress management, and dangers of alcohol and other abuses.

Older adult
• Older adults have an increased risk for falls, burns, and car accidents.
• The risk factors are confusion, sensory deficit (peripheral vision loss, decreased lens accommodation, decreased night vision, cataracts, increased threshold for hot and cold, decreased hearing), impaired judgment, impaired mobility (limited ROM, kyphosis with change in center of gravity, and decreased muscle strength), slow reflexes, uncooperative, incontinence/urgency, anxiety/emotional lability, CV disease with impaired perfusion, respiratory disease with impaired oxygenation, medications affecting level of consciousness or BP, postural hypotension, new to unit, attached equipment.
• Measures to decrease the risk:
—adequate lighting on outdoor walkways and in halls, stairways, and rooms; nightlights in children’s, older adult, and guest rooms.
—use of nonglare lights.
—elimination of obstacles such as clutter, doormats, small rugs.
—control of bathroom hazards through use of grab bars, nonslip strips or tub mat, and raised toilet seat.
—childproof caps on medications.
—discard of unused or outdated medications by flushing down the toilet.
—installation of smoke detectors and fire extinguishers in the home.