🔷 Observe the client's home environment to identify potential safety hazards.
🔷 The client has a left hip fracture and a history of three falls in 6 months, so the home must be assessed for fall risks such as loose rugs, clutter, poor lighting, and unsafe bathrooms.
🔷 A home safety assessment helps identify environmental factors that could trigger another fall, especially as the client transitions from wheelchair to walker.
🔷 Removing hazards and modifying the home (grab bars, railings, non-slip mats) supports safe mobility during recovery.
🔷 This is a key part of discharge planning for older adults with fractures and mobility limitations.
🔷Reinforce teaching about how their medication can affect their balance.
🔷 The client is taking metoprolol, a beta-blocker that can cause bradycardia, hypotension, and dizziness, all of which increase fall risk.
🔷 Teaching the client to rise slowly from lying or sitting, recognize dizziness, and call for help if they feel weak reduces the likelihood of falls at home.
🔷 Understanding side effects improves medication adherence while promoting safety, especially in a client already at high risk for falls.
🔷 This supports patient-centered education and links pharmacology to functional safety at home.
🔷Collaborate with physical therapy to determine mobility needs.
🔷 The client is transitioning from wheelchair to walker, so PT input is essential for safe progression of mobility.
🔷 Physical therapists can assess strength, balance, gait, and recommend the correct type and height of walker to prevent falls.
🔷 PT can design an individualized exercise and mobility plan, helping the client regain function safely after a hip fracture.
🔷 Collaboration with PT is a core part of interprofessional discharge planning for orthopedic and fall-risk clients.
🔷Collaborate with the client and family to implement a fall prevention plan.
🔷 The client lives alone, but an adult child will stay during recovery, so fall prevention must involve both client and family.
🔷 A fall prevention plan may include scheduled toileting, assist with transfers, use of walker, night lights, and keeping needed items within reach.
🔷 Involving the family promotes shared responsibility and improves adherence to safety strategies.
🔷 A structured plan reduces the chance of recurrent falls, which are common after a hip fracture and can be life-threatening in older adults.
🔷Facilitate obtaining assistive devices for the home setting.
🔷 After a hip fracture, the client will likely need devices such as a walker, raised toilet seat, shower chair, and grab bars to maintain safety and independence.
🔷 The nurse can coordinate with case management, PT/OT, and durable medical equipment suppliers to ensure these are in place before discharge.
🔷 Proper assistive devices compensate for limited strength, balance, and pain, decreasing the risk of falls and injury.
🔷 This supports safe discharge and smoother recovery in the home environment.
🔷 Recommend the use of a safety alert device when the client is home alone.
🔷 Because the client lives alone (except when the adult child is present), a medical alert system allows them to call for help if they fall or become unable to reach a phone.
🔷 This is especially important given their history of recurrent falls and current mobility limitations.
🔷 Early detection and response to falls reduces the risk of prolonged time on the floor, complications like rhabdomyolysis, and delays in treatment.
🔷 Safety alert devices are a standard recommendation for high fall–risk clients living alone.
Place no smoking signs in the client's home.
🔷 There is no indication that the client uses home oxygen, smokes, or lives with someone who smokes, so this is not a priority safety intervention.
🔷 Fall prevention and mobility safety are the primary concerns, not fire risk from oxygen or smoking in this scenario.