Falls are a leading cause of hospitalised injuries and injury-related deaths among older Australians with the causes of these incidents being multifactorial. However, older adults with impaired vision are twice as likely to fall than those without impaired vision.
‘More Australians visit an optometrist than any other non-medical health professional, but we’re not seeing the full benefits this sector can bring when it comes to preventing falls in older adults,’ says AHHA Chief Executive Kylie Woolcock.
Released today by AHHA’s Deeble Institute for Health Policy Research, the Issues Brief ‘Reinforcing the role of eye care practitioners in falls prevention among older adults’, highlights the importance of including eye care practitioners, such as optometrists, as part of a multi-disciplinary team of health professionals working towards fall prevention.
Around 75% of the patients admitted to hospital following a fall have a correctable vision problem, which can be corrected either by updating a spectacle prescription or by surgical removal of a cataract.
‘While guidelines for optometrists have been published that support fall prevention in older patients with appropriate spectacle corrections, its implementation and impact on fall prevention is currently unknown,’ continued Ms Woolcock.
‘To better understand the impact eye health interventions can have on fall prevention, there is a need to improve interoperability between systems used by optometry practices and those such as my health record.’
‘This Issues Brief also recommends the development of a data quality feedback tool. This tool will assess the completeness of health record data and provide feedback to healthcare professionals, including optometrists.
‘There is also a need to improve both referrals from general practitioners to eye care practitioners, and referrals by eye care practitioners and GPs to other allied health and patient support services, as these are not embedded in routine models of care.
‘Patients at risk of falls are not often directly referred to eye care practitioners, despite general agreement among GPs that vision assessments and treatments should be conducted by these specialists.
‘By including eye care practitioners in these multidisciplinary teams, it will not only reduce preventable falls due to vision impairment but also help take the burden off patients to facilitate communication between various health professionals.’
The Brief is co-authored by Deeble Institute Scholar Dr Kam Chun (Terry) Ho. It also recommends enhancing funding for public ophthalmology services in Australia and increasing funding for outreach cataract surgeries to address the shortfall that disproportionately affects First Nations Australians and those living in rural and remote areas. The Deeble Research Scholarship is supported by HESTA.