Clearly, the impact of experiencing serious injury due to pre-existing conditions will be felt sooner in these populations. Reducing the levels of risk for injury through environmental, technological, behavioral or policy change would make a tremendous contribution to the maintenance of health and well-being in older people. The current literature about unintentional injury among older adults is scattered. The gerontological-geriatric journals contain studies on motor vehicle injuries falls, chiefly in nursing facilities but also in the community. The depth of the divide between the gerontology and injury fields is reflected in that the nursing-home studies were stimulated by federal regulations mandating the reduction of physical restraints and not interest in a frequent cause of injury.
More exchange is needed between injury prevention specialists and gerontologists.
The state of the literature underscores the need for a national resource center for unintentional injury prevention among older adults that will serve as a consumer-responsive national repository. We must combine the strengths of the gerontology and public health fields to reduce the risk and occurrence of injuries among older adults. First as a means of furthering our knowledge of the field and second to take advantage of power for dessiminating key information that currently exists. Examination of the aging network nationally, reveals organizations with the ability to provide safety information to older adults and their families. These include agencies that form the care and support network for older adults and reach older adults of all income and ethnicities and the professionals who serve them.