A booklet containing advice on falls prevention reduced fractures as effectively as more intensive interventions. In a large study, the booklet was sent to older people by post. This advice alone prevented as many fractures as an exercise programme, or as multiple assessments by a range of professionals, the study found.   Falls and fall-related injuries, ...

NHS staff wearing slip-resistant footwear with proven grip are less likely to slip or fall at work than those wearing their own shoes. A new trial finds that specialist footwear could substantially reduce the risk of injury in healthcare settings.  Previous research has found that slip-resistant footwear can prevent slips in other workplaces, among fishermen ...

Fractures of the scaphoid bone in the wrist are among the most common broken bone injuries. Traditionally, they have been healed by immobilising the wrist in a plaster cast but over the last two decades, surgeons have increasingly fixed the injury in surgery, by putting a small screw across the break. However, before this study, ...

UK ambulance staff report lasting and troubling memories of being called to suicides. But in a small qualitative study, they said there was little acknowledgment in the workplace that such events are traumatic. This is important since someone exposed to suicide is known to be themselves at greater risk of suicide. Each worker interviewed had ...

Patients have a legal right to know when something goes wrong with their care. But previous research has shown that they do not always get a satisfactory explanation. Researchers in Leeds and Bradford explored the expectations and challenges faced by both patients and healthcare professionals in talking about clinical errors. They found patients and professionals ...

Early weight-bearing in a below-knee rigid boot, a functional brace, following ruptured Achilles tendon can achieve similar results to traditional plaster casting. This NIHR-funded trial included 540 people, and after nine months there appeared to be no difference between the two treatments in terms of how well patients recovered from their injury. The functional brace ...

Injecting a ruptured Achilles tendon with a small sample of a person’s own plasma, without the red blood cells, has no functional or other benefit. Plasma rich in platelets and white blood cells for the acute injury was compared with placebo. The NIHR-funded trial involved 230 adults with acute Achilles tendon rupture (the tendon which ...

Fixing a displaced broken wrist with wires is as effective as fixation with locking plates in the long term. Wrist function and pain continue to improve in the five years following either operation, with no evidence of a difference between the two treatments. In 2014, a trial comparing the use of Kirschner wires and locking plates ...

In My Signals, health and social care staff and service users tell us what research is important to them and why they feel others need to know about it. In this collection, we asked seven occupational therapists to tell us which Signals have interested them most and explain why they feel the findings are worth ...

Outcomes for ruptured Achilles tendons appear similar irrespective of the choice of intervention. This systematic review and meta-analysis found that while the risk of re-rupture with corrective surgery was small at 2.3%, with conservative management (immobilisation in a cast), the rate was only 3.9%. The complication rate at 4.9% was three times higher in those ...