Fall Risk Assessment Tools for Elderly Living in the Community: Can We Do Better?

ABSTRACT:

Background

Falls are a common, serious threat to the health and self-confidence of the elderly. Assessment of fall risk is an important aspect of effective fall prevention programs.

Objectives and methods

In order to test whether it is possible to outperform current prognostic tools for falls, we analyzed 1010 variables pertaining to mobility collected from 976 elderly subjects (InCHIANTI study). We trained and validated a data-driven model that issues probabilistic predictions about future falls. We benchmarked the model against other fall risk indicators: history of falls, gait speed, Short Physical Performance Battery (Guralnik et al. 1994), and the literature-based fall risk assessment tool FRAT-up (Cattelani et al. 2015). Parsimony in the number of variables included in

SUBMITTER: Palumbo P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4696849 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature