Flooring for Injury Prevention Trial (FLIP)

Dr. Stephen Robinovitch

Status: Completed

Conditions: Traumatic Brain Injury; Head Injuries, Closed; Accidental Falls; Nursing Homes; Bone Fracture

Treatments: Other: SmartCell flooring; Other: Plywood flooring

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT01618786

TIR 103945 (Other Grant/Funding Number)

TIPS-001

Details and patient eligibility

About

This study will evaluate the efficacy of novel compliant flooring in reducing injuries due to falls in a long-term care facility, determine the cost effectiveness of this intervention, and assess perceptions about compliant flooring among staff, residents, and families.

The investigators hypothesize that compliant flooring will (1) reduce the incidence of injuries due to falls in long-term care residents; (2) represent an overall cost-savings when material and implementation costs are considered relative to direct and indirect costs associated with injuries due to falls; and (3) be received positively by staff, residents, and their family members.

Full description

Falls are the number one cause of unintentional injury among older adults in Canada, and are responsible for economic costs in excess of $1 billion CAD annually. In high-risk environments, such as long-term care (LTC) facilities, 60% of residents will experience at least one fall each year. Moreover, approximately 30% of falls in LTC residents result in injury, and 3 to 5% cause fractures.

A promising strategy for reducing the incidence of fall-related injuries in LTC facilities is to decrease the stiffness of the ground surface, and the subsequent force applied to the body parts at impact. Purpose-designed compliant flooring can reduce the force applied to the hip during a fall by up to 35 % (to allow a raw egg to be successfully bounced without cracking). Yet, few LTC facilities have flooring designed to reduce the impact of falls. This study will address this gap.

Resident rooms at a local LTC facility will be randomly assigned to installation of compliant flooring or control (non-compliant) flooring. Following installation, primary and secondary outcomes, including fall-related injuries and falls, will be monitored for 4 years and compared between resident rooms with and without compliant flooring. In addition, health resource utilization and their costs will be compared between resident rooms with and without compliant flooring. Perceptions about compliant flooring will be assessed among staff, residents, and their families.

Enrollment: 151 estimated patients

Sex: All

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Inclusion Criteria (for rooms):

• Resident rooms across four units at New Vista Society Care Home, a long-term care facility in Burnaby, BC, Canada

Exclusion Criteria (for rooms):

• Resident rooms across four units at New Vista Society Care Home in which new flooring cannot be installed

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Quadruple Blind

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151 participants in 2 patient groups, including a placebo group

Compliant Flooring (CF)

Experimental group

Description:

Compliant flooring

Treatment:

Other: SmartCell flooring

Control (CON)

Placebo Comparator group

Description:

Non-compliant flooring

Treatment:

Other: Plywood flooring