More than one in three persons over age 65 fall each year, often at home. Luckily, most of those falls don’t result in any injury with the exception of a minor bruise or scraped knee. But falling in the bathroom is an entirely different matter. Up to 80% of the falls in the home are in the bathroom.
According to a 2011 study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), nearly 200,000 Americans are treated in emergency departments for bathroom-related injuries annually.
Bathrooms, as it turns out, are hazardous places. They have unforgiving and slippery surfaces and few dependable things to grasp onto, which greatly increases the chances for a fall. Fall-related injuries range from minor cuts, scrapes and bruises to more severe injuries, such as broken bones (especially hip fractures), head contusions, and even spinal cord injury.
