Safety Of Elderly People Research Articles

Study on Risk Intervention, Identification and Warning Techniques for Preventing Fall Injuries in the Elderly

Fall injuries have become a major threat to the health and safety of elderly people. Domestic and international studies are increasingly carried out on fall injuries suffered by the elderly. Balance scales, assessment & warning methods and tools are applied in studying falls of the elderly. In particular, devices like dynamic balance instruments, 3D force plates and surface electromyography instruments are used to capture the activity of elderly people and analyze their ability to maintain a dynamic balance. These techniques play an important role in effectively monitoring and assessing the situations of falls in the elderly. This paper sorts up current studies by scholars on falls of the elderly and analyzes the progress in this area from the angles of kinetics and biology. It particularly focuses on analysis of fall intervention using mechanical devices, supportive training services for intervening fall injuries suffered by the elderly, construction of fall injury models, and suggestions for intervening fall injuries at home. This paper finally puts forward some prospects for the study in this area.

Investigation of Medication Use Safety for Elderly People and Research on its Relevant Methods

Objective. Medication use safety is not only a matter of medicine, but a social concern to a great extent. The medication use safety of elderly people, a group that uses the most medicine on the most frequent basis, shall be paid high attention to by medicine field and the whole society. This article proposes some relevant methods of safe medication use for elderly people through their adverse drug reactions learned from the first affiliated college of our college. Method. Choose the elderly patients received and cured by the first affiliated college of our college due to adverse drug reactions from January, 2011 to January, 2012, and adopt a time point survey method to make an analysis on daily medicine types, disease occurrence degree classifications and organs/systems related to outcomes and adverse reactions, meanwhile ask elderly patients about the details of their medicine taking using questionnaires... In 250 elderly inpatients, there are 3-27 types of medicine taken, and (12.40±7.23) on average, among which 60 inpatients (24.0%) had severe adverse reactions, 136 (34.4%) of moderate ones and 54 (21.6%) of mild ones. Of 250 elderly patients, only 5 don’t take medicine at home (2.0%), 183 (73.2%) taking medicine by themselves and 67 (26.8%) taking medicine with the help of their children, spouses or housemaids. Conclusion. Adverse reactions severely harm elderly people’s life qualities, thus reasonable medication use guidance must be provided for them to reduce the occurrence thereof so that the safety and efficiency of medication use will be guaranteed.

Demographic aspects of the social safety of the elderly population in the Barents Euro-Arctic region

The social safety of elderly people is discussed with respect to different aspects of the realization of social policy in the Barents Euro-Arctic region within the context of the Madrid Plan of Actions on Aging. A comparative analysis of demographic indicators showing the age structures of regions which are parts of the Barents Euro-Arctic region is carried out. Regional differences and trends toward the improvement of social policy to provide safety of livelihood of eldery people in the Russian part of the Barents Euro-Arctic region are defined.

Safety Confirmation System Using Ultrasonic Radar for Elderly People Living Alone

In Japan, the number of elderly people living alone has increased in recent years. Therefore, we propose a safety confirmation system that includes an ultrasonic radar for confirming the safety of elderly people living alone. This system consists of an ultrasonic radar, a power line communication unit, and an information processing communication unit. The safety confirmation method performs the human body detection in the restroom using ultrasonic radar. In addition, the proposed system contains a self-checking function. The effectiveness of the proposed system has been confirmed by the results of a field experiment.

Increasing Muscle Strength and Mass of Thigh in Elderly People with the Hybrid-Training Method of Electrical Stimulation and Volitional Contraction

The "Hybrid training" (HYBT) method utilizing combined electrical stimulation and voluntary muscle contraction has been developed as a muscle training method. It has already been shown that the method is technically sound and clinically effective in healthy young subjects. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of the HYBT method on the knee extensor strength considering safety for elderly people. Twenty subjects were randomly divided into two groups: the HYBT group and the weight machine training (WMT) group. All the subjects performed knee flexion and extension for 19 min per session, twice a week for 12 weeks. At the baseline and after the training, the subjects' maximal isometric torque of knee extension and cross-sectional area (CSA) of quadriceps femoris muscle were measured. The subjects completed the study without adverse effects. The knee extension torque significantly increased in both groups (39% in HYBT group and 42% in WMT group, P < 0.05). The CSA of quadriceps whole significantly increased in both groups (9% in HYBT group and 14% in WMT group, P < 0.05). These results indicate that the HYBT method increases muscle strength and mass, and that this method is as effective as the WMT. In addition, unlike the WMT, the HYBT device, which is portable and not large in size, is so easy to handle that it can be placed at the bedside. Therefore, the HYBT has potential to become a safe, effective method of muscle training for elderly people.