Senator Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, is in Bethesda Naval Hospital outside Washington, being treated for a "minor cut to the back of his head" after a fall this morning in his apartment.

Inouye's Senate office confirms that he fell this morning, and characterize his injury as "minor." The senator never lost consciousness, and was alert and talking after his fall. He is 88.

At first, his office says, the senator didn't even want to go to the hospital.

"He wanted to go into the car and go to work," Peter Boylan, Inouye's spokesman, told ABC News, " but his family made him go to the hospital."

The Senator is expected to be discharged later today.

Inoyue is the Senate's most senior member and, as President pro tempore of the Senate, is third in the line of succession to the presidency.