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Citation

Crow, Rebecca S.; Lohman, Matthew C.; Pidgeon, Dawna M.; Bruce, Martha L.; Bartels, Stephen J.; & Batsis, John A. (2018). Frailty versus Stopping Elderly Accidents, Deaths and Injuries Initiative Fall Risk Score: Ability to Predict Future Falls. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 66(3), 577-583. PMCID: PMC5933526

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: To compare the ability of frailty status to predict fall risk with that of community fall risk screening tools.
DESIGN: Analysis of cross-sectional and longitudinal data from NHATS.
SETTING: National Health and Aging Trend Study (NHATS) 2011-2015.
PARTICIPANTS: Individuals aged 65 and older (N = 7,392).
MEASUREMENTS: Fall risk was defined according to the Stopping Elderly Accidents, Deaths and Injuries (STEADI) initiative. Frailty was defined as exhaustion, weight loss, low activity, slow gait speed, and weak grip strength. Robust was defined as meeting 0 criteria, prefrailty as 1 or 2 criteria, and frailty as 3 or more criteria. Falls were self-reported and ascertained using NHATS subsequent rounds (2012-2015). We compared the ability of frailty to predict future falls with that of STEADI score, adjusting for age, race, sex, education, comorbidities, hearing and vision impairment, and disability.
RESULTS: Of the 7,392 participants (58.5% female), there 3,545 (48.0%) were classified as being at low risk of falling, 2,966 (40.1%) as being at moderate risk, and 881 (11.9%) as being at high risk. The adjusted risk of falling over the 4 subsequent years was 2.5 times as great for the moderate-risk group (hazard ratio (HR) = 2.50, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 2.16-2.89) and almost 4 times as great (HR = 3.79, 95% CI = 2.76-5.21) for the high-risk group as for the low-risk group. Risk of falling was greater for those who were prefrail (HR = 1.34, 95% CI 1.16-1.55) and frail (HR = 1.20, 95% CI = 0.94-1.54) than for those who were robust.
CONCLUSION: STEADI score is a strong predictor of future falls. Addition of frailty status does not improve the ability of the STEADI measure to predict future falls.

URL

https://doi.org/10.1111/jgs.15275

Reference Type

Journal Article

Year Published

2018

Journal Title

Journal of the American Geriatrics Society

Author(s)

Crow, Rebecca S.
Lohman, Matthew C.
Pidgeon, Dawna M.
Bruce, Martha L.
Bartels, Stephen J.
Batsis, John A.

Article Type

Brief Report

PMCID

PMC5933526

Data Set/Study

National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS)

Continent/Country

United States of America

State

Nonspecific

ORCiD

Batsis - 0000-0002-0845-4416