We see many cases where a nursing home resident suffers multiple falls without significant injury. Finally, they have the inevitable “bad fall” and fracture a hip resulting in hospitalization and surgery. The resident often never recovers to their previous level of function.
Now for the bad news, a recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association followed residents for 20 months and concluded that energy-absorbing/shunting hip protectors currently available in US nursing homes were not effective in preventing hip fractures. My reaction is that we should design and manufacture better hip protectors!