Seniors accounted for more than half of all injury-related hospitalizations among Canadians last year.
That's according to new data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information. According to the report, 80 per cent of injuries requiring hospitalization for seniors were because of a fall.
Theresa Morris is the director of Emergency Services and Patient Flow at Windsor Regional Hospital.
Morris says the hospital sees a lot of seniors injuries that require hospitalization.
"Fractured pelvises, fractured hips, those kinds of things that do need hospitalization," she says. "Out of the patients that do arrive to the ER, we're probably admitting about 27-28 per cent of those patients, one in three."
Morris say a geriatric nurse is stationed at every emergency room in the city.
"They can assist and assess these patients who come in with frequent falls or they've had a pretty serious fall but are being sent home and can educate those patients and families on how to prevent further falls," says Morris.
Once sent home, she says cccupational therapists help ensure those injuries don't happen again.
"They'll put the hand-bars in for them, advise them on carpets and those kinds of things that can be a fall risk for them and have them removed," says Morris.
The report names vehicle collisions as the second leading cause.
Accidental poisoning, which can occur from substances such as drugs and alcohol, or gases and vapours like carbon monoxide, was the third leading cause of injury hospitalizations.
The data was collected from hospitals across Canada between April 1, 2017 and March 31, 2018.
---With files from AM800's Patty Handysides