Prevalence of household falls in long-lived adults and association with extrinsic factors.
Silviane Galvan Pereira, Claudia Benedita Dos Santos, Marlene Doring and 1 others
PMID 29069267WHAT IT FOUND
In adults aged 80 or older, 46.9% reported a fall in the past year.
Uneven floors, steps, pets at the entrance, missing anti-slip rugs and bathroom grab bars were associated with falls.
Key findings
01Among 350 adults aged 80 or older, 46.9% reported a fall in the prior year, and 31.1% of fall cases resulted in fractures.
02In adjusted analysis, steps, uneven floors and pets at the main entrance remained associated with falls, with uneven floors reported at 5.54 times.
03Most falls happened inside the home, especially in the bathroom (26.2%), and 97.7% of households had slippery bathroom floors.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for RNs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The study is cross-sectional, so it cannot show whether a home feature came before or after a fall. Some associations may be reverse: grab bars may have been installed after falls, and rugs may have been removed after falls. Falls were self-reported over the prior year, so recall bias is possible. The sample excluded adults with severe cognitive deficit suggestive of dementia and bedridden adults, so results do not apply to those groups. The environmental questionnaire was built by the authors; the paper notes no validated Brazilian instruments for assessing home extrinsic factors. The study was limited to 350 adults in one Brazilian city, so generalizability may be limited.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that changing these home features prevents falls. This is a cross-sectional survey, so the paper cannot show which came first; grab bars or rugs may have been added or removed after a fall.