Meta-Analysis-Based Comparison of Annual Fall Risk between Older Adults with Alzheimer's Disease and Mild Cognitive Impairment.

BACKGROUND

Falls are a primary cause of injuries and hospitalization in older adults. It has been reported that cognitive impairments and dementia can increase fall risk in the older population; however, it remains unknown if fall risk differs among subgroups of dementia. This meta-analysis summarized previous studies reporting the annual fall risk of people with Alzheimer's disease (AD) or mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and compared the fall risk between these two groups of people with dementia.

METHODS

Thirty-five studies enrolling 7844 older adults with AD or MCI were included. The annual fall prevalence and average number of falls of the included studies were meta-analyzed and compared by random-effects models with inverse variance weights.

RESULTS

The annual fall prevalence in people with AD (43.55%) was significantly higher than MCI (35.26%, < 0.001). A test indicated that the pooled fall prevalence is significantly higher in people with AD than MCI = 158.403, < 0.001). Additionally, the yearly average number of falls in AD was higher than in MCI (1.30 vs 0.77 falls/person).

CONCLUSIONS

The results showed that older people with AD experience a higher annual fall prevalence with a larger number of falls than older adults with MCI. The results suggested that the fall risk measurements should be reported separately between people with AD and MCI. The findings could provide preliminary guidance for the identification of individuals with dementia who experience a high fall risk.