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Gómez-Conesa A.1, Martínez-Carrasco Á.1
1University of Murcia, Physical Therapy, Murcia, Spain
Background: Falls in elderly persons are a problem with serious personal consequences and high health care costs. The balance disorder is considered a risk of fall in this population.
Purpose: To determine the most accurate balance tests to predict the risk of falls. Monitoring the number of falls in a twelve months period. To evaluate the incidence and other risks of falls for people who live in nursing homes.
Methods: 262 adults (age 65 to 101, with an average of 83.14 years old, and 63.75% females) living in nursing homes in Cuenca (Spain), participated in the study. The tests were administered: Berg Balance Scale (BBS), Five Times Sit to Stand (FTSST), One-leg Stance Test (OLST), Functional Reach Test (FRT), Timed Up and Go (TUG) , Tinetti Performance Oriented Mobility Assessment (POMA), Romberg, and Get Up and Go; and monitoring of falls the following year was made.
Results: OLST, TUG, BBS, FTSST and FRT have higher sensitivity (0.98, 0.89, 0.86, 0.85 and 0 82 respectively) and POMA has the highest specificity (0.75). 82 people suffered one or more falls for the monitoring year.
Conclusion(s): OLST is recommended to exclude people without risk of falling and POMA to detect people at risk of falling. The probability of falling is higher as time goes on. The one who fall more are: women, people with requiring walking aids and those with a history of falling.
Implications: OLST and POMA can be recommend for physical therapists for assessing falls risk in elderly who living in nursing homes. The first to exclude people without risk of falling and the second to detect people at risk of falling.
Funding acknowledgements: We have no funding research. No acknowledgement is required.
Topic: Older people
Ethics approval: Ethics Committee of University of Murcia. Informed consent in accordance with the ethical code of the World Medical Association.
All authors, affiliations and abstracts have been published as submitted.
