Fully clothed, 85-year-old Rose B. demonstrated to a visiting nurse how hard it is for her to climb into her bathtub. Clutching the vertical stainless steel grab bar and the horizontal handrail against the wall, she managed the maneuver, but with her legs quivering.

"When my helper is here with me, it's all right, but when I'm on my own, I'm afraid I'll fall," she said. "I fell so many times."

The nurse, dispatched by the Jewish Family Service of Central New Jersey, was on hand to teach Rose (a pseudonym) how to use the safety equipment whose installation she had recommended.

Rose, who lives in Roselle, is one of the lucky ones. She found help before having a major injury. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one in three seniors experiences a fall each year, resulting in 300,000 fractured hips; around 11,000 seniors die as the result of a fall.

The JFS' own survey found that 45 percent of the 700 clients who responded said they had suffered at least one fall in the previous year, made at least one trip to the hospital emergency room, and had at least one admission to a local hospital.

Those figures inspired the agency to launch its Ounce of Prevention program. Working with recommendations from its counseling and home aide staff, JFS nurses visit the homes of frail seniors with limited financial resources. They evaluate the potential dangers — to the clients and their caregivers, if they have one — and discuss with them ways to make their homes safer.

With the clients' agreement, they purchase such pieces of equipment as shower seats and elevated toilet seats. Workers from Jewish Vocational Service install aids like support bars and handrails.

Where needed, they improve lighting and rearrange furniture; for example, they put chairs with arms at the kitchen table to offer support or remove clutter and scatter rugs that could cause tripping.

Of the 100 clients served in the program's first year, including Rose, not one has suffered a serious fall.

JFS hopes to reach another 100 seniors this year.

Despite the overwhelming benefits, relatively few seniors receive the preventive measures they need because of the expense involved. Medicare and insurance will cover the cost of fall prevention equipment only for someone who has already been injured in a fall.

To finance its Ounce of Prevention outreach, JFS had to seek its own funding. That came in the form of a grant from the Jewish Community Endowment Foundation of the Jewish Federation of Central New Jersey. This year, the endowment foundation has again funded the program, with a grant of $15,400 the first year and $16,400 the second year.

The foundation doesn't cover any single program for more than two years, so JFS has to find another source of money for next year.

JFS executive director Tom Beck said he would like to see a more permanent form of funding for the program. "It saves people from physical and emotional pain, and it makes financial sense," he said. "The hospital costs for treating one person who falls and breaks a hip, say, can be higher than the cost of this whole program."

Rose sought help from JFS when she grew afraid that even ordinary activity around the house might result in a fall. She is quite fit, but she has shaky spells that she was told are from a Parkinson's condition, though not full-blown Parkinson's disease. "When I get excited or nervous, I get wobbly," she said.

She is determined to stay put in the home she loves. It is set right next to a playing field where, weather permitting and with the help of a walking frame, she often does a mile around the track. She and her husband, Sid, who died 10 years ago, had the house built 46 years ago and brought up their two sons there.

Compared to some people her age, Rose has her life well organized. Her two sons live nearby and bring their children — five boys in all — to visit her. A friend picks her up to go to synagogue services or to seniors' exercise classes at the YM-YWHA of Union County in Union, and JFS transport takes her to the doctor. On two cords around her neck she carries a button that connects to an emergency service, and a cell phone.

But despite all that, she is alone most of the time, and the falls were becoming more frequent. Karen Winter, a home care nurse who has worked with JFS for about 18 months, visited her house and assessed her needs.

Within a week, the necessary equipment had been purchased, and workers from JVS had installed the bars. But, Winter said, making changes can sometimes take time and repeated persuasion, even with someone as clear and astute as Rose.

Tackling Rose's difficulties getting in and out of the tub, Winter on a recent visit asked her, "What about the transition seat we gave you?" Winter went to the bedroom and came back with a six-legged plastic and aluminum chair, with the manufacturer's tag still attached. She set it in the tub, with two legs outside, resting on the floor. "Oh, that's how it's meant to go," Rose said, her face lighting up.

With a little prompting, she sat on the seat and lifted her feet into the tub. "This is much better," she exclaimed. She lifted her legs out and — holding the vertical bar — stood up without hesitation, clearly delighted with the new arrangement.

"Don't use my real name," Rose asked this reporter. "I don't want my friends to get jealous of all this help I'm getting."

Winter told her that if those friends were to become JFS clients, they can also request such services. Whether they get them or not depends on the waiting list and whether funding is found to expand this program and the others the agency offers to help people like Rose stay safely in their own homes.