As part of the effort to prevent severe injury from falls, a certain segment of the long-term care medical community advocates the use of hip protectors or padding devices. A recent article in the Journal of the American Geriatric Society disputes that hip protectors impact upon the number of falls involving female adults. The study performed by physicians in Japan noted that one problem involved the degree to which people actually use the hip protectors on a daily basis. The basic idea is that if hip protectors are not used it is difficult to evaluate how effective they are.