Introduction of GaitSmart in the care pathway for the elderly to reduce falls and improve the quality of life of individuals

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"Mobility and independent living are key to an older person's health and wellbeing. One in 3 people over 65 fall each year and for some this results in a loss of independence and significant reduction in everyday activities. The corresponding health and social care costs are considerable with over £2.3B spent of hip fractures caused by falls alone.It is known that key risk factors relating to falls include gait and balance issues and yet in the current care pathway technology is not used to provide objective measurements to identify and quantify gait and balance issues. This makes prevention strategies very difficult to implement and intervention programmes are generally triggered by a fall. These programmes should be personalised and this is currently done after a subjective assessment.GaitSmart data identifies exactly where the problem lies and the severity presented using simple traffic light coding. It is a quick and simple test that can be performed in a GP surgery in 10 minutes. This data can initiate a personalised exercise plan and can therefore be used to help prevent falls. Subsequent tests quantify the effectiveness of the intervention and provides motivation to the individual to continue with the programme. For those who have suffered an injurious fall and become frail, the same procedure is applied to help the individual regain their mobility and independence.Our pilots have involved people in both situations. They have included people up to the age of 91, some of whom have suffered an injurious fall, and many requiring a walking aid. For fallers the GaitSmart guided intervention programme resulted in improvements in mobility, frailty and fear of falling. For those with a poor gait putting them at risk of falling it improved their mobility and significantly reduced their fear of falling. For the individuals this improves their quality of life, whilst for the NHS it reduces future healthcare costs.This project will build upon the data from previous small NELFT and Care City pilots. GPs, geriatricians, Falls Clinics managers and lead physiotherapists in the community hospital have already committed to supporting the project by providing access to patients under their care. The GaitSmart intervention protocol will be similar across the groups.The results will be publically available and compared to published data and reference material from the trial sites."