title: Characteristics of falls in the epilepsy monitoring unit: a retrospective study.
abstract: Falls are an important adverse event in an epilepsy monitoring unit (EMU). We identified patterns of falls in an EMU and compared them with risk factors for inpatient falls. Twenty-six patients with 26 falls (2.3% of admissions) in the EMU were compared with 50 general neurology inpatients with 56 falls over a 4-year period. In the EMU, the majority (62%) of falls happened during the first 3 days of admission, mostly in the bathroom (74%), in patients with a normal mental status (77%). Most general inpatients fell after the third day (64%), inside their rooms (68%), and had an altered mental status before the fall (68%). All 26 EMU patients were identified as high risk at admission, in spite of which falls were not prevented. We outline these differences between EMU patients and general inpatients and highlight the practice gap in preventing falls in an EMU.
authors.affiliation: Dept of Neurology, Barrow Neurological Institute, USA. Electronic address: spati@partners.org.
authors.forename: Sandipan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Pati
authors.forename: Vishakhadatta M
authors.initials: VM
authors.lastname: Kumaraswamy
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Deep
authors.forename: S S
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: Chung
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Plueger
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Kiyota
authors.forename: D M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Treiman
mesh_terms: D000058:Accidental Falls / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007297:Inpatients; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008991:Monitoring, Physiologic / Q000379:methods*; D009422:Nervous System Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000503:physiopathology; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012307:Risk Factors; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Epilepsy monitoring unit; Fall; Risk assessment; Safety