Recognized as a Best of the Best Program to Spotlight, Senior Living Communities’ Stand Strong program has reduced falls among residents in its memory care neighborhoods by up to 75 percent.
Each year, one out of three seniors older than 65 and half of those over 80 years old will fall. Meanwhile, preventing falls among memory care residents poses unique challenges. “You’re up against several different factors,” says Stacy Carter, vice president of operations at Senior Living Communities. “Residents can’t necessarily retain information we’re giving them, so it was up to us to do things every day the same way.”
To get ahead of falls occurring in its residences, Senior Living Communities looked inward at its systems, tapped the expertise of its healthcare business partners, and came up with Stand Strong, a fall prevention program especially attuned to the needs of residents with dementia.
Stand Strong takes a holistic approach by targeting medication management, sleep deprivation, the physical environment, and other risk factors through operational changes. For example, wake-up policies are now centered more on residents’ needs than on the staff’s convenience. “We found that everyone was always working against the time frame of the clock,” says Carter. “Toward the end of the day, residents were getting sleepy.” A new “lights out until 10 a.m.” policy enables residents to sleep until they naturally wake up. Morning medications are administered upon rising. Shift changes take place at a whisper so as not to disturb sleepers.
Other aspects of Stand Strong include assessing each resident’s risk profile each quarter, pinpointing nutritional deficiencies, adjusting medications and the physical environment, and offering activities for building lower body strength. The quarterly risk assessments correspond with residents’ health assessments, resulting in a comprehensive management of individual risk factors. The goal is to mitigate risks through smarter supervision rather than by making changes that would limit a resident’s independence or hinder mobility.
The program is championed on the community level by a fall prevention team that includes the healthcare administrator, resident care director, rehabilitation director, a CNA from each shift, a housekeeper, a maintenance technician, and a dining services representative. The use of team members from all levels of the organization has created greater buy-in for the Stand Strong policies.
Stand Strong reduced falls in two memory care neighborhoods last autumn by 72 and 75 percent, respectively, and is now being expanded to all 12 communities.
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