Exercise is the most effective method for decreasing the rate of falls in adults aged 65 and older who live independently. It is especially effective in adults aged 75 and older.
Exercise and a basic fall risk assessment by your healthcare provider can reduce your risk of breaking bones in a fall. In a falls assessment, your healthcare provider asks you whether you’ve fallen, the details of the fall, and whether your home environment contributed to the fall. They also evaluate how well you walk and move around, along with your balance and other walking-related issues.
These strategies can also help prevent falls:
Using assistive technology and devices. These can include canes, walkers, and devices that can call for help at the touch of a button.
Making homes safer by:
- removing clutter, throw rugs, and other falling hazards
- improving lighting
- installing grab bars
- making other home improvements.
Falls: A Serious Health Problem for Older Adults
Falling, or accidentally and unexpectedly landing on the ground, usually happens in familiar environments while you are doing your normal daily activities. You may fall when something pushes you, your trip, you lose consciousness (from a seizure, stroke, or other health problem), or you are experiencing the symptoms of a new illness.
Falls have serious consequences. One out of five falls causes a severe injury, such as a broken bone or a head injury. In older adults, they are the number one cause of hospital admissions for injuries. The older you are, the more likely falls threaten your ability to live at home and increase your risk of early death.
Falls are widespread among older adults, especially those with multiple chronic conditions. An older person falls every second of the day, and one out of three older adults living at home falls yearly.
Why the Researchers Studied Fall Prevention Strategies
Falls are such a big problem for older adults that many researchers have studied ways of preventing them. This study’s researchers did a systematic review and meta-analysis to get the big picture of what works best to prevent falls. This means that the researchers looked at the results of multiple studies simultaneously.
Most of the studies looked at evaluated programs that used more than one strategy simultaneously to prevent falls. Researchers say this study is the first to examine how effective individual falls prevention strategies are when they are examined separately instead of together. Understanding and comparing the effects of each strategy can make it easier for healthcare professionals to offer older adults personalized help.
Earlier studies have also yet to include people over 75 and older adults with multiple chronic conditions. Because people in these groups have an exceptionally high risk of falling, it is essential to learn which fall prevention methods are most effective.
What the Researchers Learned
The researchers examined 192 studies that included nearly 100,000 older adults who live independently. Of those studies, 128 included adults between 75 and 84. Eleven of the studies included people 85 or older. The studies compared the effects of 63 fall prevention strategies—some individual strategies and some combinations of strategies—to the effects of the care the participants usually received.
Researchers found that exercise is the most effective individual strategy for decreasing the rate of falls and the number of falls in adults aged 65 and older who live independently. It is especially effective in adults aged 75 and older. Strategies that work in combination include exercise, fall risk assessments, using assistive devices, and making your home safer.
Study findings also suggest that older adults who exercise and have had fall risk assessments may be less likely to break bones if they fall.
What This Study Means for You
If you do only one thing to prevent falls and fall-related broken bones, make it exercise.