Full Course Description

2-Day Fall Prevention Specialist Certification Course: Fall-proof Your Patients with Today's Best Practices

One fall can turn your patient’s life upside down, resulting in rapidly declining health, extended hospital stays, financial loss, fear and isolation.

Whether you’re an OT, PT, nurse or anyone who works in a rehab or healthcare setting one fall can turn your life upside down as well; erasing the progress your clients have made toward their functional goals, causing you stress as you worry for your patient’s well-being, and leaving you facing the nerve-wracking implications for the reputation of both you and your facility.

Watch this seminar, learn how to help patients avoid falls while retaining the strength, balance and mobility it takes to stay functionally independent.

More than just an overview, this intensive Certification Course will offer practical solutions to some of the most challenging real-life situations you face with patients who fall or are at risk of falling. Built on today’s best practices, this program will provide you exactly what you need so you can…

Better predict and prevent falls with effective fall prevention tools and strategies
Safely build strength, coordination and balance in fallers
Restore mobility and function with interventions and assistive technologies
Build your professional reputation as a go-to resource on fall prevention

Program Information

Objectives

Integrate the latest advances in fall prevention and the most current changes from the CDC into your practice.
Employ comprehensive assessments to identify issues with balance, visual-spatial functioning, proprioception and other root causes of fall risk.
Assess available interventions so you can choose the appropriate ones for safely restoring balance, mobility and function in patients with varying root causes of fall risk.
Integrate multiple approaches and exercise programs for better outcomes with fallers and patients at high-risk of falling.
Determine the safest landing strategies that your patients can employ to reduce the impact of falls.
Develop home exercise programs for patients so they can build strength and coordination.
Utilize tips to recognize abnormal gait patterns in fallers.
Employ ideas and plans that will protect older adults, patients using oxygen, and others at high-risk of falling from injury.
Evaluate parameters for safely intensifying rehab with patients who fall.
Apply best practices for educating and engaging non-compliant patients to reduce their risk of falling.
Investigate evidence-based fall prevention programs that can be used in your facility.
Evaluate home-based risk factors that contribute to falls and determine how these risk factors can be mitigated.

Outline

FALL RISK MITIGATION ESSENTIALS

The latest advances in fall prevention
The most current changes from the CDC
Intrinsic risk factors
Environmental extrinsic risk factors
Medications and substance use

COMPREHENSIVE FALL RISK ASSESSMENTS

Predict and Prevent Falls with Tools for Evaluating Your Patients’ …
- Balance
- Visual-spatial function
- Sensory-motor integration
- Proprioception
- Vestibular function
- Gait and mobility
- Age-related degeneration
- Home safety
- Pharmacological side effects

REDUCE FALL RISK AND RESTORE MOBILITY AND FUNCTION

Interventions, Assistive Technologies and Techniques to …
- Restore balance, mobility and function
- Minimize fall impact and injury
- Treat dizziness and vertigo
- Improve multitasking, coordination and gait
- Resolve vision problems that contribute to falls
- Boost cognition, memory and focus
- Reduce environmental fall risks
- Orthotics, gait devices and assistive technology for fallers

IMPROVE STRENGTH, COORDINATION, BALANCE AND SAFETY

Multifactor Approaches and Exercise Programs for Fall Reduction
- Vestibular rehabilitation
- Strength training programs
- Quick tips to recognize abnormal gait patterns in fallers
- Balance assessment tools
- Nutrition
- Hydrotherapy interventions

HIGH-RISK PATIENT SOLUTIONS

New Ideas and Innovative Plans to Protect Patients from Injury
- Older adults
- Impaired vision
- Patients using oxygen
- TBI and stroke
- Multiple Sclerosis
- Parkinson’s Disease
- Diabetes
- Pain

PATIENT EDUCATION TOOLBOX

Best Practices for Building Understanding and Engagement for Improved Outcomes
- CDC – STEADI initiative algorithm
- The American Geriatric Society updated Beers Criteria
- Evaluate your patient’s understanding of fall prevention
- Checklists
- Body mechanics
- Car and floor transfers
- Fall recovery techniques
- Safe landing strategies
- Best practices for non-compliant patients

DEVELOPING A SUCCESSFUL FALL PREVENTION PROGRAM FOR YOUR FACILITY

Evidence based programs
STEADI toolkit
Marketing and partnership strategies
Coding and billing updates

PRACTICE AND CASE STUDIES

Evaluate a client’s home for risk factors
Apply advanced balance training and multitasking techniques
Integrate visual testing and gaze stabilization
Navigate pharmacological side effect

Target Audience

Physical Therapists
Physical Therapist Assistants
Occupational Therapists
Occupational Therapy Assistants
Nurse Practitioners
Nurses
Nursing Home Administrators

Copyright : 05/16/2022

Improving Functional Mobility & Gait Patterns Following Injury, Surgery & Aging

Rehab professionals are well versed in the phases of gait and recognize how consuming seeking to identify the slightest of abnormalities can be. After documenting these observations, what’s next? How do we draw meaningful and impactful conclusions to discover the origin of the identified abnormalities and further translate these findings to objective treatment goals and strategies?

Functional mobility and gait are some of the most widely addressed therapeutic activities. For decades, we have primarily relied on study of the “phases of gait” to address gait and mobility abnormalities with injury, surgery, or general aging. Although impactful, the phases of gait often neglect areas critical for safe mobility and energy conservation. This course will address the six determinants of gait and allow you to drastically add to your understanding of mobility beyond the mechanics. You will learn evidence-based exercises, activities, and treatment strategies that can directly impact not only gait, but everyday function, mobility, and safety for your patients.

Program Information

Objectives

Demonstrate the impact of the 6 Determinants of Gait and the resultant reduction of energy expenditure.
Analyze current evidence supporting the use of the 6 Determinants of Gait in the clinical setting.
Investigate therapeutic activities and treatment strategies that emphasize the 6 determinants of gait following injury or surgery.
Develop documentation strategies and language based on information provided to justify mobility intervention to payer sources.

Outline

The 6 Determinants of Gait

Definition of Gait/Mobility
Original Determinants of Gait
Curtate vs prolate cycloid vs cycloid

Evidence supporting the use of the 6 Determinants of Gait

Phases of Gait review
What the phases neglect
Functions & systems
Parameters for mobility

Therapeutic activities and treatment strategies

Application after injury or surgery
Sit-stand (anterior pelvic tilt)
Pelvic Teeter Totter
Lateral pelvic tilt
Knee flexion at midstance
Knee/ankle/foot interactions
Pelvic rotation with hip flexion
Reciprocal arm swing

Documentation strategies

Justify mobility intervention to payer sources
Documentation platforms
Gait/Mobility example

Target Audience

Physical Therapists
Physical Therapy Assistants
Occupational Therapists
Occupational Therapy Assistants
Athletic Trainers
Chiropractors

Empower Clients with Mobility Impairments: Using Technology to Improve Quality of Life

Individuals with physical limitations want to take ownership of their lives, move forward, and gain independence! To make this happen, they need to know what options exist in the marketplace, how to obtain them, and how to best use them.

Learn about the latest and greatest in assistive technology, especially pertaining to wheelchair functions and accessories. We will focus on the various options available to individualize mobility equipment to maximize the end-user’s experience and independence. Learn how smart phones interface with power wheelchairs, how various controls are operated using Bluetooth devices that interface with power wheelchairs. Options will be presented that range from very simple to complex, affordable and main-stream to specialized and potentially cost-prohibitive. You’ll learn the recommended process for prescribing and obtaining assistive technology devices, as well as take home information and resources that can be shared with your patients immediately!

Program Information

Objectives

Determine the role of the health care provider in procuring assistive technology
Distinguish the pros and cons of both power and manual wheelchairs
Assess at least 3 different applications of Bluetooth technology in improving independence in power wheelchair users

Outline

Introduction to assistive technology
Provide definitions and examples of assistive technology pertaining to wheelchair users (both simple add-on devices such as luggage carriers or cup holders, to complex such as a power-assist device or alternative power wheelchair controls)
Provide guidelines for equipment ordering process, including guidelines for insurance coverage based on the device and the patient’s diagnosis
Discuss alternative funding sources or community organizations that can help with access to assistive technology options
Define wheelchair classifications, manual and power
Discuss modifications necessary within a person’s home and transportation to accommodate manual versus power wheelchairs
Provide overview of power assist options for manual wheelchair users – a hybrid between power and manual
Provide outline of new power wheelchair features that utilize Bluetooth technology
Present and discuss case study for practical application of specific devices for a power wheelchair user
Questions & answers

Target Audience

Physical Therapists
Physical Therapist Assistants
Occupational Therapists
Occupational Therapy Assistants
Athletic Trainers