Falls' and fallers' profiles.

OBJECTIVE

To describe the different falls typology and to investigate whether different falls profiles and faller profiles could be identified among a cohort of community-dwelling women aged 75 years and older.

DESIGN

Prospective cohort study.

PARTICIPANTS

Women aged 75 years and older were enrolled in five French centers after a random selection from electoral lists and included in the EPIDOS study.

MEASUREMENTS

During a 4 year follow-up, women were contacted by telephone every 4 months to investigate the occurrence of falls. To minimize the memory bias, the specific questionnaire on falls was completed only if the fall took place in the week preceding the contact. A multiple correspondence analysis followed by clustering was carried out to identify the typology of falls.

RESULTS

727 women described at least one fall. A full description of 662 falls was obtained during the follow-up period. In the multiple correspondence analysis the main discriminant item was outside versus inside falls. Moreover, four clusters were showed: outside falls linked to lack of attention (28% of women), outside falls related to exogenous/environmental factors (16%), inside falls associated with frailty (44%) and in height falls (11%). We also found that each type of falls was correlated with particular health or functional status (i.e.;dependence, motion difficulty, weakness, use of walking aid, ...).

CONCLUSION

From frailty to hyperactivity there are different falls and fallers profiles. Assessing such fall profiles could be helpful to develop new dedicated fall prevention programs in the elderly.