Falls are Australia’s leading cause of injury hospitalisation and death, representing 43 per cent of injury hospitalisations and 42 per cent of injury deaths. The risk of falls increases with age, with the majority of these life-altering incidents happening within the familiar confines of one’s home.
Kingston Home-Based Community Rehabilitation physiotherapist and Principal Investigator Dr Katrina Kenah will be conducting the LIFT (Learning Independent Floor Transfers) study to design and test the feasibility of a floor transfer training program to improve the ability of patients to get up from a fall at home independently.
“The inability to get up after a fall may lead to ‘long-lie’ complications from remaining on the ground for a long time, such as hypothermia, dehydration, or pressure injuries.
“It has also been associated with poor health outcomes including increased risk of hospitalisation, poor recovery of physical function, increased possibility of admission into residential aged care and even death,” she says.
Katrina adds that the ability of adults at risk of falls to get up on their own will boost their confidence and independence at home and reduce the incidence of hospital visits.
“We regularly see people in our program who have fallen at home and been stuck on the floor for hours before help arrives, or who have needed to call an ambulance to help them get back up.
“When people are unable to get up off the floor, we often find that they limit their activities due to a fear of falling,” she said. “We want to reverse this trend.”
A Raizer II mobile lifting chair commonly used by ambulance services, worth nearly $8,000, has been donated through Community Bank Parkdale’s Community Grants program to facilitate the study.
Katrina says having access to the Raizer II lifting chair is critical to the floor transfer training approach that will be used.
“When we see patients in their homes, it can be challenging to get them onto the floor to practise getting up again because physiotherapists are often worried that they might be unable to help their patients back up.
“Having the Raizer II on stand-by to use if needed will provide physiotherapists reassurance to retrain this fundamental skill,” says Katrina.
Katrina is being supported to undertake this research through a 2024 Monash Health Allied Health Onwards and Upwards Research Grant, together with other collaborators from Monash Health, Monash University and Curtin University.
“I am very excited to be leading this research project, to continue to develop my research skills after my PhD and to bring some of my colleagues along for the ride as we embed this research project into the program where I work.”
The study is expected to start in October 2024, with results available by the end of 2025.
The LIFT study will recruit 10 participants, and their physiotherapists will conduct the floor transfer training during their usual home visits.
Katrina hopes that findings from the LIFT study will help inform options for a wider roll-out of the floor transfer training program across Monash Health and to secure funding to conduct a more extensive study to determine the program’s effectiveness.
