A new clinical decision tool is being introduced that will assist medical personnel in helping to prevent seniors from falling.
The technology is called Stopping Elderly Accidents, Deaths & Injuries, or STEADI, and is being designed based on guidelines for fall assessment from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). It is intended to help medical providers screen for falls, intervene to decrease risk, and give patients proper follow-up care. 
The CDC already offers a STEADI tool kit to health care providers, which includes information about falls, conversation starters, case studies, standardized balance and gait assessment tests, and educational information that health care providers can give to people at risk of falling and their families. The STEADI program suggests that medical personnel ask seniors three crucial questions: Do you feel unsteady when walking or standing? Have you fallen in the past year? Do you have concerns about falling? If a senior answers “yes” to any of these questions, then they are considered to be at an increased risk of falling. Health care providers may then review medications to reduce the dosage or stop those that may increase the risk of falling, recommend vitamin D supplements with calcium, educate the patient and the patient’s family about fall prevention, and schedule follow-up care.
The clinical decision support tool, based on the CDC system, is expected to be available in hospitals by the end of the year.
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