We must stop so many seniors from drowning

Ontario is an award-winning province for a number of reasons, but there is one record that they definitely wouldn’t want to earn. That record was for the most water-related deaths in the country.

Although the vast majority of the drownings happen where you would expect them, in a lake or a river, there’s a surprising object that poses a grave risk to seniors and, worse still, this object is used daily and can be found in a majority of Canadian homes — the bathtub.

Of course, we’re well aware of the risks that bathtubs pose to babies and toddlers, especially bath chairs.

But, the numbers show that seniors face similar risks from this seemingly benign household object.

Nineteen per cent of Albertans and 16 per cent of Ontarians who drowned last year died in a bathtub.

And year-over-year, those numbers are increasing.

The dangers of the tub have been well-documented in pop culture over the past few years, as well, with the tragic deaths of superstars like Whitney Houston and, most recently, Dolores O’Riordan of the Irish rock band The Cranberries.

It should be noted there were extenuating circumstances with both deaths. Houston’s autopsy revealed she had a slew of narcotics in her system before dying and O’Riordan’s toxicology report noted that she was more than four times over the legal alcohol limit for driving.

Although it’s reasonable to assume that most Canadian seniors wouldn’t be medicated to the degree that both Houston and O’Riordan were when they died, the truth is they can be. A report by the Canadian Institute for Health Information showed that one in four Canadians aged 65 or older were prescribed 10 or more types of drugs.

Scarily, opiates were one of the most common drug classes for this age group. According to the report, this chemical cocktail has increased the number of hospitalizations as well as increasing the risk of a life-altering fall.

Bathtub-related falls are another danger in plain sight. Despite just over two per cent of injuries occurring while in a tub, more than nine per cent of bathtub-related injuries occur when trying to leave the bath.

That is the biggest concern for seniors, especially for those who are already struggling with mobility.

More than half of all falls in Canada will cause soft-tissue damage and up to a quarter of all falls will have a more severe outcome.

According to the Seniors and Aging Report by Health Canada, a large majority of non-fatal falls will result in permanent disability or impairment, leading to one-fifth of Canadian seniors being moved to a permanent-care facility.

Swiss researchers led by Thomas Sauter studied the types of injuries sustained in a bathtub.

Their findings showed that one in 10 falls involved a traumatic brain injury, with all those who had a bleed on the brain after a bathtub fall being over age 48.

Canada shares the second-highest bathtub mortality rate with the United States, both of which are significantly lower than first-place Japan, which saw 13,634 bathtub-drowning deaths between 2009 and 2011, just over 12,000 of which were 65 or above — a stark contrast from the hundreds of people in Canada who died in tubs during the same period.

I believe that we can cut the number of Canadians dying in their bathtubs, but it starts with taking bath safety more seriously.

Advocates at the Senior Care Networks recommend that concerned family members of seniors install and regularly check non-slip flooring both in and outside of the tub, as well as ensuring that their elderly loved ones aren’t bathing while intoxicated or under the influence of opiates.

They say that every Canadian has a stake in ensuring bathtub safety, “so that we can help Canadian seniors continue to enjoy a high quality of life for many more years to come.” Reece Mack is a seniors’ rights advocate and Fort Langley-based public relations coordinator.