Community-dwelling older people with an injurious fall are likely to sustain new injurious falls within 5 years - a prospective long-term follow-up study

BMC Geriatrics

Research Article

Petra Pohl¹  Lillemor Lundin-Olsson¹  Ellinor Nordin¹  Anders Lundquist²  Ulrica Bergström³ 

[1] Department of Community Medicine and Rehabilitation, Physiotherapy, Umea University, 90187, Umea, Sweden;Department of Statistics, Umea School of Business and Economics, 90187, Umea, Sweden;Department of Surgical and Perioperative Science, Orthopedics, Umea University, 90187, Umea, Sweden;

关键词: Accidental falls;    Older adults;    Risk factors;    Community-dwelling;    Fall prediction;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2318-14-120

 received in 2014-05-08, accepted in 2014-11-13,  发布年份 2014

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundFall-related injuries in older people are a leading cause of morbidity and mortality. Self-reported fall events in the last year is often used to estimate fall risk in older people. However, it remains to be investigated if the fall frequency and the consequences of the falls have an impact on the risk for subsequent injurious falls in the long term. The objective of this study was to investigate if a history of one single non-injurious fall, at least two non-injurious falls, or at least one injurious fall within 12 months increases the risk of sustaining future injurious falls.MethodsCommunity-dwelling individuals 75–93 years of age (n = 230) were initially followed prospectively with monthly calendars reporting falls over a period of 12 months. The participants were classified into four groups based on the number and type of falls (0, 1, ≥2 non-injurious falls, and ≥1 injurious fall severe enough to cause a visit to a hospital emergency department). The participants were then followed for several years (mean time 5.0 years ±1.1) regarding injurious falls requiring a visit to the emergency department. The Andersen–Gill method of Cox regression for multiple events was used to estimate the risk of injurious falls.ResultsDuring the long-term follow-up period, thirty per cent of the participants suffered from at least one injurious fall. Those with a self-reported history of at least one injurious fall during the initial 12 months follow-up period showed a significantly higher risk for sustaining subsequent injurious falls in the long term (hazard ratio 2.78; 95% CI, 1.40–5.50) compared to those with no falls. No other group showed an increased risk.ConclusionsIn community-dwelling people over 75 years of age, a history of at least one self-reported injurious fall severe enough to cause a visit to the emergency department within a period of 12 months implies an increased risk of sustaining future injurious falls. Our results support the recommendations to offer a multifactorial fall-risk assessment coupled with adequate interventions to community-dwelling people over 75 years who present to the ED due to an injurious fall.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Pohl et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2014