Senate Committee Considers Options To Address Elderly Injuries

Some 12 million elderly Americans fall down each year, resulting in "billions of dollars" in medical bills, elderly advocates and caregivers said during a June 11 Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee aging subcommittee hearing, AP/Newsday reports. More than 10,000 seniors died in 1999 as a result of fall-related injuries, David Fleming, acting director of the CDC, said in written testimony, adding that treatment of elderly falls accounts for about $20 billion in medical costs each year. Bobby Jackson, vice president of the National Safety Council, said that 25% of the elderly who fracture a hip during a fall -- "among the most common injuries" -- die within one year, and 75% "never regain the quality of life they had before the fall." Sens. Tim Hutchinson (R-Ark.) and Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) have proposed a bill (S 1922) that would provide $38 million each year for three years to establish an education campaign to reduce elderly falls, subsidize research on preventing falls and improving treatment and examine expanding Medicare and Medicaid coverage of treatment after falls. "Education and prevention are steps we must take to address this epidemic," Hutchinson said (Freedman, AP/Newsday, 6/11).