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Action Falls: Developing a falls management programme for adults with intellectual disabilities

Falls can have a significant impact on the lives of adults with intellectual disabilities and their carers. There is a need to develop falls prevention strategies specifically for adults with intellectual disabilities.

The Action Falls programme is a falls management tool that identifies falls risk factors and supports action to reduce these risks. The Action Falls programme was co-produced by clinicians, care staff and researchers and is clinically used across community settings in the general older adult population. The current Action Falls programme for older adults needs adapting for adults with intellectual disabilities who have specific reasons why they might fall and are supported by different services in the community.

We will co-produce, with people who have intellectual disabilities, carers and health professionals a revised version of the Action Falls programme to meet their needs.

There will be 3 components of work:

Stage 1: Interviews with stakeholders on the current Action Falls tool and falls management

• The stakeholder interviews have now been completed and this has identified two parts to the tool;

1. Overview for adults with intellectual disabilities and their carers.
2. Clinical assessment for healthcare professionals.

• These two versions will be further developed in Stage 2.

Stage 2: Consensus process to agree the key aspects of an adapted Action Falls tool

• We completed the expert consensus group on 7/6/22– thank you to all involved. The group has helped us to develop the format of the tool. This part of the tool has been updated and taken to an independent group of clinical experts to check accuracy of the clinical content. We have also informally consulted with adults with intellectual disabilities and carers on their component of the tool.
• The clinical and adults with intellectual disabilities and carer part of the tool have now been completed and are ready for Stage 3.

Stage 3: Proof of concept study to try out the adapted Action Falls tool and see what people think about using it

Participant information video

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