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Background:The identification of the occurrence of falls is an important step for screening and for rehabilitation processes for the elderly. The methods of monitoring these events are susceptible to recording biases, and the choice of the most accurate method remains challenging. Objectives:(i) To investigate the agreement between retrospective self-reporting and prospective monitoring of methods of recording falls, and (ii) to compare the retrospective self-reporting of falls and the prospective monitoring of falls and recurrent falls over a 12-month period among older women at high risk of falls and fractures. Method:A total of 118 community-dwelling older women with low bone density were recruited. The incidence of falls was monitored prospectively in 116 older women (2 losses) via monthly phone calls over the course of a year. At the end of this monitoring period, the older women were asked about their recall of falls in the same 12-month period. The agreement between the two methods was analyzed, and the sensitivity and specificity of self-reported previous falls in relation to the prospective monitoring were calculated. Results:There was moderate agreement between the prospective monitoring and the retrospective self-reporting of falls in classifying fallers (Kappa=0.595) and recurrent fallers (Kappa=0.589). The limits of agreement were 0.35±1.66 falls. The self-reporting of prior falls had a 67.2% sensitivity and a 94.2% specificity in classifying fallers among older women and a 50% sensitivity and a 98.9% specificity in classifying recurrent fallers. Conclusion:Self-reporting of falls over a 12-month period underestimated 32.8% of falls and 50% of recurrent falls. The findings recommend caution if one is considering replacing monthly monitoring with annual retrospective questioning.

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a silent and poorly known killer. The current concept of CKD is relatively young and uptake by the public, physicians and health authorities is not widespread. Physicians still mix up CKD with chronic kidney insufficiency or failure, For the wider public and health authorities, CKD evokes kidney replacement therapy (KRT). In Spain, the prevalence of KRT is 0.13%. Thus, health authorities may consider CKD a non-issue: very few persons eventually need KRT and, for those in whom kidneys fail, the problem is “solved” by dialysis or kidney transplantation. However, KRT is the tip of the iceberg in the burden of CKD. The main burden of CKD is accelerated aging and premature death. The cut-off points for kidney function and kidney damage indexes that define CKD also mark an increased risk for all-cause premature death. CKD is the most prevalent risk factor for lethal COVID-19 and the factor that most increases the risk of death in COVID-19, after old age. Men and women undergoing KRT still have an annual mortality which is 10- o 100-fold higher than similar age peers, and life expectancy is shortened by around 40 years for young persons on dialysis and by 15 years for young persons with a functioning kidney graft. CKD is expected to become the fifth global cause of death by 2040 and the second cause of death in Spain before the end of the century, a time when 1 in 4 Spaniards will have CKD. However, by 2022, CKD will become the only top-15 global predicted cause of death that is not supported by a dedicated well-funded CIBER network research structure in Spain. Realizing the underestimation of the CKD burden of disease by health authorities, the Decade of the Kidney initiative for 2020-2030 was launched by the American Association of Kidney Patients (AAKP) and the European Kidney Health Alliance (EKHA). Leading Spanish kidney researchers grouped in the kidney collaborative research network REDINREN have now applied for the RICORS call of collaborative research in Spain with the support of the Spanish Society of Nephrology, ALCER and ONT: RICORS2040 aims to prevent the dire predictions for the global 2040 burden of CKD from becoming true.