Stressful life events significantly raise the risk of falls in older men

A study of around 5,000 older men has shown that stressful life events such as death of a loved one, or serious financial problems, significantly raised the risk of falls in the year following the incident. The research is published in the journal Age and Ageing. (First blogged on the BGS blog)

Dr Howard A. Fink of the VA Medical Center in Minneapolis and colleagues conducted a study of 5,994 community-dwelling men over the age of 65 who were enrolled in the Osteoporotic Fractures in Men (MrOS) study in six locations across the United States. 5,125 participated in a second study visit and answered questions on stressful life events in the prior year. A further subset of 4,981 men reported complete data on falls for one year after the second visit.

September issue of Age and Ageing journal now available

The September issue of Age and Ageing, the journal of the British Geriatrics Society is out now. A full table of contents is available here, with editorials, research papers, reviews, short reports, case reports book reviews and more. Hot topics this issue include:

• Shock absorbing floors and injury prevention
• Alcohol consumption in older people
• Osteoarthritis and falls fracture risk assessment
• The needs of older prisoners

The Editor’s Pick can be read here. This issue’s free access papers are:

• Unnecessary ward moves
• Six-month outcomes following an emergency hospital admission for older adults with co-morbid mental health problems indicate complexity of care needs
• Older Europeans and the European Court of Justice

Preventing falls in care homes: a question of balance

Ahead of her session at the British Geriatrics Society Falls and Postural Stability Conference in September, Kate Robertson writes with Alex Macdonald for the Geriatric Medicine blog  (re-blogged from the British Geriatrics Society blog) about falls in care homes.

Falls in older adults are common and the rate is three
times higher in people in care homes than in those living in their own homes. Falls in care homes are associated with considerable mortality and morbidity-hip fractures are significantly more prevalent than in community-dwelling older people, with rates in female care home residents estimated as high as 50.8 hip fractures per 1000 person-years.

Although extensive research has been carried out into interventions to reduce falls in community-dwelling older people, there is limited evidence of the effectiveness of such measures within care homes. Oliver concluded that it makes sense to identify risk factors for the individual so that they can be reversed or reduced where possible. However the protocols used to perform risk assessments for falls in care homes are often not validated, vary from care home to care home, and do not necessarily trigger individually-tailored interventions. These assessments invariably attempt to stratify risk but because each individual within the care home is already at high risk, opportunities for interventions to reduce the risk of falling are often missed.

Read the full article on the GM blog here.