What To Do After an Elderly Parent Falls at Home in Massachusetts

If you are reading this standing in your parent's kitchen with your phone in your hand, start here. The order matters more than the speed.

Do I get her up off the floor?

Not yet. The instinct is to lift. Lifting is the thing that turns a bad fall into a worse one. Kneel down, stay at her eye level, and ask three questions before you touch her.

• Does anything hurt right now, and where?
• Did your head hit anything on the way down?
• Can you move both legs and both arms for me?

If the answers are no pain, no head contact, and everything moves, you can help her up slowly. Roll to her side first, then to hands and knees, then into a sturdy chair you have already pulled over. No pulling on arms or under the armpits. Let her do the work and use your body as something steady to push against.

If any answer gives you pause, she stays where she is. Put a pillow under her head, a blanket over her, and call for help.

When do I call 911 instead?

• She cannot stand or bear weight, or one leg looks shorter or turned outward. That is a hip until a hospital says otherwise.
• She hit her head, even lightly, and takes a blood thinner. Make the call even if she feels fine. This is the one people talk themselves out of.
• She cannot tell you what day it is, or she is drowsy, confused, or vomiting.
• She does not remember falling. A fall with no memory of it is often a fainting episode, which is a heart question, not a balance question.
• You cannot get her up safely on your own. Calling the fire department for a lift assist is a normal thing to do in Massachusetts and nobody will make you feel bad about it.

She says she is fine. Is she?

She may be. She will also say she is fine because the alternative is a conversation about whether she can still live alone, and she knows that. Call her doctor the next morning anyway. Ask for a fall workup, not just a once over. The useful questions are whether a medication is causing the dizziness, whether her blood pressure drops when she stands, and whether her vision or her feet have changed since the last visit.

Watch her for a few days for pain that shows up late. Bruising and stiffness often arrive on day two or three, and a cracked rib or a wrist can hide behind the shock of the fall itself.

What usually breaks down in the first week

The injury is rarely the problem families call us about. What they call about is everything the fall quietly took away.

• She stops showering, because the tub is now the scariest place in the house.
• She stops cooking, because standing at the stove takes confidence she does not have this week.
• She stops getting up at night, which means she stops drinking water, which makes her dizzier.
• She stops leaving, because the front steps are now a wall.

That is the real injury, and it compounds fast. Somebody in the house for a few hours a day in the first two weeks is what keeps it from setting.

How much help does she actually need?

Front load it, then shrink it. Families who buy a small permanent schedule on day one usually buy the wrong thing, because week one and week five look nothing alike.

What works for most people after a fall with no fracture is four hours a day for about two weeks, covering the morning. Morning is when the shower happens, when the stiffness is worst, and when confidence is lowest. Then drop to two or three hours a day once she is moving, and keep it there as long as it is earning its keep.

If she is afraid of the night, an overnight is the thing that gets everyone sleeping again. Most families only need it for a week or two.

What does that cost?

Our home health aide rate is $45 an hour , from one to eight hours a day. There is no minimum contract and no assessment fee. We publish the rate because you should not have to call an office to find out what help costs.

• Four hours a day for the first two weeks is $180 a day, about $2,520 for the fourteen days.
• Three hours a day after that is $135 a day, about $4,095 for a thirty day month.
• Two hours a day is about $2,730 a month.
• An overnight is $540 for a twelve hour night.
• Around the clock care is $1,080 a day.

The full monthly math at every schedule is on our home care cost page.

What will an aide do if she falls again?

Our aides are trained, background checked and insured. They are trained in safe transfers and in how to guide someone up off a floor without hurting them or themselves. They will not lift a person who may be injured, and they are not supposed to. They will keep her warm and still, call 911, and call you.

Be clear on what an aide is and is not. Our aides are not nurses. They do not administer medication, change a dressing, or make a medical judgment about an injury. What they do is be there for the hours when falling is most likely, which is most of why the second fall does not happen.

What about the front steps?

If the fall happened on the stairs, or if she now cannot get down the front steps to a car, that is a separate problem from home care and it has its own answer. We run a stair assistance service with two trained staff and an electric stair chair for $200 a visit, which is how people who cannot do steps still get to appointments without a ramp being built first.

What to fix in the house this week

• Grab bars in the bathroom, bolted into studs, not suction cups.
• A shower chair and a handheld shower head. Together they cost less than a copay and they end most bathroom falls.
• Every throw rug out of the main path. Every one.
• A light she can reach from the bed, and a clear path to the bathroom.
• Her phone charging where she can reach it from the floor, not across the room.

Our bathroom safety checklist goes through that room in order.

How fast can someone start?

Usually within a day or two, and often the next morning. There is no assessment fee and no contract to sign before we come out, so a two week schedule that you cancel in week three costs you two weeks.

Call us at 781 957 8076 or email info@careremedyinc.com. We serve Greater Boston from our Woburn office, Western Massachusetts from Springfield, and the South Shore from Brockton.

If she hit her head or cannot bear weight, stop reading and call 911 first. We will still be here afterward.