A Tool to Help Prevent Falls

Student DVD premieres

One of the most dangerous threats to the health of older adults is a fall. Often isolated and underserved, the elder population frequently suffers severe injury — even death — from falls. That’s why, for their senior capstone project, five Seattle Pacific University nursing students chose to create an eight-minute DVD addressing this area of critical concern to the community.

Released in September 2008 in conjunction with Fall Prevention Awareness Day, “The Good News About Fall Prevention” has been hailed by both senior groups and health care professionals. The NorthWest Orthopaedic Institute reproduced 2,500 copies under a grant from the West Region Emergency Medical Services Injury Prevention Council for distribution to public health, health care, and aging-service care providers in Washington state; and the video has caught the attention of the Washington State Department of Health, the National Council on Aging, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and media such as The New York Times.

“The bottom line is that this DVD has met a real need for quality professional information to disseminate in this format to professionals and consumers,” says Sally York, director of research and education at NorthWest Orthopaedic.

In less than 10 weeks, the student team scripted, edited, scouted locations, and enlisted actors and a videographer. Team member Shawna Lloyd ’08, now a registered critical care nurse with Seattle’s Virginia Mason Medical Center, says “we wanted to create a simple, practical tool that would work.” Lloyd’s co-producers were Kristen Becker ’08, David Ligman ’08, Tori Vislocky ’08, and Sarah Woodcock ’08. Their faculty advisor was Instructor of Nursing Carol Redfield.

“The DVD is a real gift to the community,” says Redfield, who serves as skills lab coordinator in Seattle Pacific’s School of Health Sciences. “It’s the way education should be portrayed.”

She believes it is vital for her students to understand that even though older adults are often a seemingly “invisible” population, statistics say that 60 percent of the patients nurses will care for in hospitals are of the age to be eligible for Medicare.




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