Back to Annual Meeting

Back to Annual Meeting

APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Pulin Yu, MD, Institutie of Geriatrics, Beijing Hospital, Ministry of Health, #1 Dahua Road, Dongdan, Dongcheng District, Beijing, China, Juan Zhang, MS, Applied Health Science, Indiana University, 5 E. 7th Street, HPER 116, Bloomington, IN 47405, and Huimin Zhu, Geriatrics Department, Taizhou Central Hospital of Zhejiang province, China, Taizhou Economic Development Zone, Taizhou Zhejiang, 318000, China, 86-576-8526570, hkatzsw@hotmail.com.

To understand the epidemiological characteristics of falls in older people living in urban community and to explore the factors related to falls in the elderly and to lay a theoretical foundation for three-level prevention of falls in older people.

Method: A cross-sectional study was conducted in Longtan community of Chongwen District, Beijing. A total of 1,512 persons aged 60 years and over were selected with stratified cluster sampling and data about falls within the past 12 months and their consequences and falls-related risk factors were collected by face-to-face interview.

Results: Falls incidence was 18.0% within 1 year among 1,512 interviewees. It was higher among women than among men. Falls incidence increased with age (14.5%, aged 60-64; 15.4%, aged 65-69; 19.5%, aged 70-74; 20.2%, aged 75-79; 23.1%, aged 80-84; and 28.6%. 8.7% of older people suffered injuries from falls, 1.3% of them suffered fractures and 5.5% of them suffered parenchyma hurt. Activities of daily living decreased in 35.7% of older people with falls, 58.8% of them feared subsequent falls again. Risk factors for falls included dementia, depression, antihypertensive, glaucoma, hypertension, fear of falls, postural hypotension, and taking two or more drugs. Protective factors included doing exercises and Tai Chi.

Implications: Falls in the elderly was resulted from combined effects of individual and environmental factors. Intervention preventing from falls should be multifaceted to address the multiple factors.

Learning Objectives:

• Describe the prevalence of falls in elderly
• Describe the risk of occurrence of falls in different age groups.
• Identify the risk factors of falls in elderly

Keywords: Elderly, Health Behavior

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No