Falls Links 

 March 2021 | Issue 1 

Welcome to our newsletter

Upcoming Events

NSW Fall Prevention & Healthy Ageing Network Annual Virtual Forum

Friday 30th April 9.30am - 3.00pm AEST

The NSW Fall Prevention and Healthy Ageing Network is holding its annual forum on the 30th April 2021 as a virtual meeting. Rounding out April Falls month with the theme Safe Activity for Everybody this forum will provide an overview of recent fall prevention research, legislative and policy changes in residential aged care and fall prevention in hospitals.

 

Plenary Speakers

• Pam Albany Guest Lecture: Dr Daina Sturnieks, School of Medical Sciences, UNSW, Falls Balance and Injury Research Centre, NeuRA
• Professor Chris Todd, Director of the NIHR Older People & Frailty Policy Research Unit, Professor of Primary Care and Community Health, School of Health Sciences, University of Manchester
  
• Professor Stephen Lord, Senior Principal Research Fellow; Centre Director, Falls Balance
  and Injury Research Centre, NeuRA
  
• Professor Kathy Eagar, Director of Australian Health Services Research Institute, University of Wollongong
• Professor Anne-Marie Hill, Faculty of Health Sciences, Curtin University
• Associate Professor Kate Laver, ARC Discovery Early Career Research Fellow, College of Medicine and Public Health, Flinders University

Afternoon concurrent workshops 

• Telehealth - A practical workshop on how to setup and deliver exercise via telehealth, followed by a panel and Q&A
• The CEC Comprehensive Care Model – Minimising harm

April Falls Month 2021 - Safe Activity for Everybody

April Falls Month is fast approaching and resources and promotional material for Community Living, Residential Aged Care and Hospitals are now available on our website. This year we are aiming to encourage everyone to safely increase their activity regardless of ability. This covers healthy ageing across the domains of physical activity, good nutrition and social engagement.

Encourage your colleagues, clients and friends to take the 30-day challenge with a goal to move more, eat healthy and connect with others.

Choosing Wisely Australia National Meeting Virtual Event

19 May 2021

This year’s National Meeting offers a platform for Choosing Wisely members and supporters, consumer advocates, health services and other healthcare influencers to engage in discussions, presentations and workshops about empowering consumers and supporting health professionals to be champions for changing the conversations in our health system so that people only receive care that is evidence-based and truly needed.

 

Call for Abstracts

Abstracts are now open for the Choosing Wisely Australia 2021 National Meeting. Abstract submissions that highlight advances and learnings within the theme Empowering consumers to choose wisely, may be accepted as e-poster presentations or lightning talks.

Program Highlight

Be healthy, be mobile. A handbook on how to implement mDementia
A World Health Organization Initiative

BeHe@lthy BeMobile and the Mental Health and Substance Use department have developed the mDementia programme, leveraging mobile technologies to provide health information to those at risk of developing dementia and to support carers of people living with dementia. The mDementia programme will complement existing health and social care offered by informal carers, health care professionals and civil society service providers. This handbook provides guidance on how to develop, integrate, implement and evaluate a national mDementia programme in five key areas: operations management; content development and adaptation; promotion participation and retention; technology specifications; and monitoring and evaluation.

RESEARCH UPDATE

One-to-One and Group-Based Teleconferencing for Falls
Rehabilitation: Usability, Acceptability, and Feasibility Study

Hawley-Hague H, Tacconi C, Mellone S, Martinez E, Chiari L, Helbostad J, Todd C. JMIR Rehabilitation and Assistive Technologies, 8(1).

doi 10.2196/19690

Background:
Falls have implications for the health of older adults. Strength and balance interventions significantly reduce the risk of falls; however, patients seldom perform the dose of exercise that is required based on evidence. Health professionals play an important role in supporting older adults as they perform and progress in their exercises. Teleconferencing could enable health professionals to support patients more frequently, which is important in exercise behavior.

 

Objective:
This study aims to examine the overall concept and acceptability of teleconferencing for the delivery of falls rehabilitation with health care professionals and older adults and to examine the usability, acceptability, and feasibility of teleconferencing delivery with health care professionals and patients.

 

Methods:

There were 2 stages to the research: patient and public involvement workshops and usability and feasibility testing. A total of 2 workshops were conducted, one with 5 health care professionals and the other with 8 older adults from a community strength and balance exercise group. For usability and feasibility testing, we tested teleconferencing both one-to-one and in small groups on a smartphone with one falls service and their patients for 3 weeks. Semistructured interviews and focus groups were used to explore acceptability, usability, and feasibility. Focus groups were conducted with the service that used teleconferencing with patients and 2 other services that received only a demonstration of how teleconferencing works. Qualitative data were analyzed using the framework approach.

 

Results:

In the workshops, the health care professionals thought that teleconferencing provided an opportunity to save travel time. Older adults thought that it could enable increased support. Safety is of key importance, and delivery needs to be carefully considered. Both older adults and health care professionals felt that it was important that technology did not eliminate face-to-face contact. There were concerns from older adults about the intrusiveness of technology. For the usability and feasibility testing, 7 patients and 3 health care professionals participated, with interviews conducted with 6 patients and a focus group with the health care team. Two additional teams (8 health professionals) took part in a demonstration and focus group. Barriers and facilitators were identified, with 5 barriers around reliability due to poor connectivity, cost of connectivity, safety concerns linked to positioning of equipment and connectivity, intrusiveness of technology, and resistance to group teleconferencing. Two facilitators focused on the positive benefits of increased support and monitoring and positive solutions for future improvements.

 

Conclusions:

Teleconferencing as a way of delivering fall prevention interventions can be acceptable to older adults, patients, and health care professionals if it works effectively. Connectivity, where there is no Wi-Fi provision, is one of the largest issues. Therefore, local infrastructure needs to be improved. A larger usability study is required to establish whether better equipment for delivery improves usability.

ABOUT US

Our vision is to lead the way in fall prevention and other healthy ageing initiatives by harnessing expert knowledge and being collaborative in all we do.

 

We work closely with researchers, policy makers, health practitioners and community service providers in the development and promotion of healthy ageing services and programs with a focus on preventing falls and fall-related injury.

 

Our purpose is to support practitioners to improve the lives of older Australians through healthy ageing initiatives with a focus on preventing falls and fall-related injuries.

Contact Us:

Telephone +61 2 9399 1063

Email fallsnetwork@neura.edu.au

 

Our mailing address is:
NSW Falls Prevention Network
Neuroscience Research Australia
PO Box 1165
Randwick NSW 2031

 

Copyright © NSW Falls Prevention and Healthy Ageing Network

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