Knowledge and Perception of Fall-Related Risk Factors and Fall-Reduction Techniques Among Community-Dwelling Elderly Individuals

Abstract

The community-dwelling elderly individuals studied considered falls to be preventable and understood the importance of fall-related risk factors, but they did not consider themselves to be susceptible to falling.

Home care clients’ participation in fall prevention activities

“…This proportion was higher than reported in other studies investigating the prevalence of falls in community-dwelling individuals older than 65 (46% vs 30%) [2,3]. This is not surprising considering that the very nature of home care clients means that they are more likely to have a higher dependency, mobility problems and issues associated with being frail and requiring assistance to live in their own home.…”

“…Once found, a tool developed by Braun [2] to assess perception of fall risk factors and fall reduction techniques among community-dwelling older people was modified to meet the listed objectives. All modifications were made with reference to the fall literature and wherever possible when an item was added to the survey, it was taken from another tool that had been used in one or more other studies [10,11].…”

“…In 1998, 1014 people died in Australia as a direct result of a fall and 45 069 individuals over the age of 65 were hospitalised as a result of falling [1]. Research has shown that approximately 30% of people older than 65 living in their own home fall [2,3] and as they age, the prevalence of falling increases. By the age of 80, the proportion of individuals who fall increases to 80% [4].…”

A problematização da queda e a identificação dos fatores de risco na narrativa de idosos

“…Thus, multifactorial causes also has become a subcategory, but with lower frequency of meaning units (7 Findings from the present work were similarly described before in other studies. Braun (1998), points out that older adults listed extrinsic risk factors, such as conditions of the roads and the lack of handrails on the stairs, as the main cause of falling 32 . These studies help to support the greater attention and perception of the participants of this study to these factors.…”

Complexity in Built Environment, Health, and Destination Walking: A Neighborhood-Scale Analysis

“…Health is related to how the built environment is perceived as walkable. 6,45 There are other pathways through which health and the built environment could be correlated, 13,41 such as availability of healthful foods, 44 air quality, 22,23 quality of housing stock, 36,47 and so on. However, these pathways, not being relevant to destination walking, are set aside for this present research.…”