In the study cohort, nonambulatory residents had 35% of injurious falls. Because the circumstances and risk factors of these events were substantially different from those for ambulatory residents, separate prevention strategies may be needed for this group. These data suggest that increasing the safety of transferring and of equipment are appropriate targets for interventions.

In this cohort of frail, nursing home residents, both area ellipse of postural sway and the Tinetti balance subscale independently predicted risk of future recurrent falls. However, the predictive value of other independent fall risk factors on risk of future recurrent falls persisted and was not explained by these two measures. Thus, assessment of patient fall risk based on surrogate endpoints, for either research or clinical practice, may need to include multiple measurements.