According to a study published in British Medical Journal, Fear of falling is prone to cause future falls among elders, and this applies to whether or not you actually have a risk of falling. Therefore, fear can be included in the factors to avoid fall risk, and new falling prevention approach can be developed.
People who are old do often have a fear of falling. There are several determinants why elders fear falling; anxiety, depression, poor balance and previous falls. However, in previous research fear has not been taken into account as a cause for falling.
A team of scientific research from Belgium and Australia took the mission to comprehend how fear of falling actually is associated with the risk of falls.
The study was conducted on 500 individuals aged 70 to 90 years and who lived in Sydney. The participant had to go through a series of neuropsychological and medical assessments. The expected and current fall risks were then calculated using known scoring scales, the participants were then monitored on a monthly basis for a whole year.
The one year study revealed that both the current and perceived fall risk did as a separate determinant influence the future risk of falling for elders.
At a more advanced stage of the research, the group was segregated into four groups based on differences on the actual and perceived risk of falling.
It appeared that most of the elders did perceive a high risk of falling. However, the most ‘vigorous’ group was those who actual had and perceived a low fall risk. This group had a lesser likely risk to fall in the future. On the other hand, the ‘aware’ group which actually had and perceived a high risk of falling did, on the contrary, have a higher risk of falling in the future.
Nevertheless, roughly 30 percent of the elders neither overestimated nor underestimated their potential risk of falls. For instance, the ‘anxious’ group had had a low fall risk but perceived the risk of falling in the future as being high. This future risk of falls was associated to neurotic personality traits, depression symptoms as well as bad physical functioning.
The ‘stoic’ group with a high actual but a low expected fall risk, was better off. They had a lesser risk to fall in the future and this was associated to a positive attitude towards life, community participation as well as physical activity.
On general, the higher the perceived risk of falling was the more ostensible was the risk of falling in the future. This appeared true whether the actual risk was high or low. The risk of falling is thus highly associated to our psychological condition.
The study also demonstrated that decreasing the fear of falling would not augment the risk of falls despite that people might become too confident. According to the study, both actual and perceived fall risk are two important factors that should be included in fall risk assessment of elder people. It could even help to devise better preventive falling interventions for older people.
Source: British Medical Journal
Sun, Aug 22, 2010
Gerontology