Fear of Falling': How Hospitals Do Even More Harm by Keeping People in Bed

Experts warn hospitals' fall prevention efforts to avoid penalties from the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) are so excessive as to create an "epidemic of immobility," reports Kaiser Health News . Hospitalized persons who could benefit from activity are all too often recommended to stay bedbound, with bed alarms and a deficit of assistive staff exacerbating this situation. This is especially harmful for seniors, who are often weak to start with. The University of San Francisco-California's Kenneth Covinsky found 33 percent of persons 70 and older are even more impaired when they leave the hospital. He adds that CMS' stepped-up enforcement of penalties for falls has produced "a climate of fear of falling," in which nurses "feel that if somebody falls on their watch, they'll be blamed for it." The increased weakness caused by remaining bedbound also is likely to ensure damage if the person falls. Throughout the nation, efforts are underway to encourage hospitalized people to get up and move, often inside special wings designed to preserve the independence of seniors and prevent hospital-acquired disabilities.