Developing a question and identifying a problem - Essay Example

Therefore, nurses would need some form of training. Critically thinking, they would need an advanced training aside from their formal training on basic nursing. In retrospect, does this form of advanced training in prevention of patient falls impact on patient outcomes compared to no training? Patient falls present a significant physical health risk to the patient. Additionally, the complications that arise from patient falls incur significant hospital costs to both the patient and the hospital.

The patient would have to incur extra costs for the management of the complications of the falls, whereas the hospital would put forth extra resources necessary for the management of potential complications of the fall. Besides, health care institutions could face a lawsuit with concomitant legal implications. Patient falls within health care institution in an occurrence that needs to be considered with utmost concern. Therefore, this paper will explore falls among elderly patients, its impact on the work environment, and quality of care, patient outcomes, and its significance to nursing and proposed solution.

Falls in long-term care institutions and health care facilities are common. Tack, Ulrich and Kehr (2010), observe that approximately 25.5% of patients who experienced a fall had a neurological condition. Additionally, they opine that neurological patients are considered as among the high risk population. Elderly patients present with a number of neurological conditions attributed to age and lifestyle. For instance, Snijders , Van de Warrenburg , Giladi and Bloem (2010), observe that gait disorders are prevalent among the elderly can present devastating health outcomes such as reduced quality of life, increased incidence of falls and increase in mortality.

Neurological diseases diagnosed in elderly patients exist with other clinical conditions. Lauretani, et al. (2014) posits that Alzheimer’s disease in the elderly could present with extrapyramidal signs