Falls in hospitalized acute stroke patients.

UNLABELLED

THE AIM of this study was to analyze the fall frequency and some of its characteristics in hospitalized acute stroke patients.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

It was analyzed 1809 acute stroke patients hospitalized at the Department of Neurology in period of one year. A fall was defined as any unplanned "touch to the floor" of any part of a patient's body, excluding the feet.

RESULTS

Out of 1809 acute stroke patients, 1544 (85.35%) had cerebral infarction (CI) and 265 (14.65%) intracerebral hemorrhage (IH). In group of patients that fell (61/3.3%), 49 (80.33%) had infarction and 12 (19.67%) (p = 0.25) had hemorrhage. Out of 61 patients that fell, 42 (68.86%) suffered from impaired spatial orientation and 47 (77.05) were aphasic. The neurological deficit, impairments of spatial orientation and presents of aphasia were highly correlated with falls (p < 0.001). The most frequent falls occurred by night night (38 or 62.29%) and in the first five days of hospitalization (44 or 72%). In most cases (52%) the falls caused minor injuries like contusion and lacerations of skin and did not require special medical treatment.

CONCLUSION

Hospitalized acute stroke patients have no high risk of falling (3.3%), and the incidence of serious injury is low. The falls are more frequent in the first five days of hospitalization (72%) and occur mostly during the night (62.29%). Severity of neurological deficit, impaired spatial orientation and aphasia are highly correlated with falls.