As I approach 70 years old, I find myself being more careful going down stairs and reaching out more often to catch my balance. Although I have not had a significant fall — unless I count when I’m mountain biking — I still worry about it like most older adults. More than 25% of adults aged 65 years or older fall each year, with one out of five falls resulting in a serious injury such as fractures of the hip, wrist, humerus, and pelvis, head and brain injury, chronic disabilities, and even death (36,000 in 2020). The risk increases with […]
Tag: Safety
Website Highlights Safe Disposal Options for Used Needles & Sharps
More and more communities across the country are encountering a commonly overlooked public health and safety issue: improper needle and sharps disposal. “Sharps” is a medical term for devices with sharps points or edges that can puncture or cut skin. Examples of sharps are needles, syringes, lancets, auto injectors, epinephrine and insulin pens, infusion sets, and connection needles/sets. The group of people who are put in the most danger by improper sharps disposal are environmental service workers – janitors, housekeepers, waste and recycling workers and sewage treatment workers. When a needle is tossed directly into the trash, it has the […]
How to Safely Dispose of Needles
NeedyMeds is pleased to announce our latest partnership with SafeNeedleDisposal.org! In honor of this new partnership we are spotlighting this week’s blog post on the safe disposal of needles. Needle disposal is a public health and safety issue that is commonly overlooked. The problem is that there are limited options for safe disposal of needles which leads to dangerous situations for the public – including injury and the spread of infectious disease. Additionally, information about safely disposing of syringes and needles is difficult to come by and often misunderstood. Each year “approximately 9 million syringe users will administer at […]