A simple mobility screen can identify elders at increased risk for recurrent falls. Risk within this group is further modified by risk-taking behavior and environment.

To identify immediate antecedents of bathing-related physical assaults against caregivers by nursing home residents with Alzheimer's disease and related disorders, videotapes of nursing home residents who physically assaulted nursing assistants during baths were analyzed. Caregiver behaviors that occurred significantly (p < .01) more often during the 5 seconds preceding an assault included: calling the resident by name, confrontational communication, invalidation of the resident's feelings, failure to prepare the resident for a task, disrespectful speech, any touch, absence of physical restraint, and hurried pace of bath. Assaults were significantly more likely when caregivers sprayed water without a verbal prompt; the resident's feet, axilla, or perineum were touched; residents exhibited signs of temperature discomfort; and multiple caregivers were present. Improved caregiver training and individualized, gentler bathing methods should be investigated as methods of reducing assaults.

The general aim of the present study was to examine and help clarify the properties of the distinctions between social networks and social support, their relationship to health status, and their implications for health education practice. More specifically, a secondary data analysis was conducted with 130 white women, community residents, between the ages of 60 and 68, which examined the relationship between psychological well-being and social network characteristics. These characteristics are categorized along three broad dimensions: structure--links in the overall network (size and density); interaction--nature of the linkages themselves (frequency, homogeneity, content, reciprocity, intensity, and dispersion); and functions which networks provide (affective support and instrumental support). A combination was made and relative strength investigated of several network characteristics representative of the quality of interactions (i.e., reciprocal affective support, intensity, and affective support) and those representing the quantity of interactions (i.e., size, density, and frequency).

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Epidemiologic studies show that injury is a nonrandom event of considerable consequence to older people. Even though children have the highest injury rates for all injuries combined, the elderly have the highest death rates and the highest dysfunction and disability rates from falls, fires and contact with hot substances, and vehicular crashes. There are notable race and sex differences in injuries in the elderly. Women have higher rates of injury from falls than men. Men have higher injury rates from burns and motor vehicle crashes (including pedestrian injuries), and for each of the three categories of injury men have higher death rates than women. Before the age of 75, nonwhite males have the highest rates of death from injury. At 75, however, white males cross over to have a much higher rate of death from injury than do nonwhite males. More than half the deaths due to unintentional injury in persons 65 and older are caused by falls. White men have the highest death rates from falls, followed by white women. More than a fourth of the injury fatalities for people 65 and older are from motor vehicle crashes. More than 9.3 per cent of all licensed drivers are 65 or older. Older drivers drive fewer miles than other people, and they tend to limit their driving to daytime and to relatively less stressful conditions. Nonetheless, when miles driven by drivers over 64 are taken into account, the relatively small number of crashes is equivalent to a crash rate exceeded only by the under‐25 age group. Pedestrian deaths account for more than a third of motor vehicle deaths to people 65 and older. The death rate from burns is higher in the elderly than in any other age group, including young children. In the event of thermal injury, old people are much less likely to survive. Diminished ability to perceive hazard and to respond effectively contributes to higher injury rates among the elderly, as does lower injury threshold.