Balance and Fear of Falling in Elderly Community

• Autor(a) principal: Silva,Flávia Cristina da
• Data de Publicação: 2012
• Outros Autores: Trelha,Celita Salmaso, Germano,Josiane Moreira, Grott,Mariana Goeldner
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Geriatrics, Gerontology and Aging (Online)
• Texto Completo: https://ggaging.com/details/177
• topic: Health Services for the Aged, Postural Balance, Accidental Falls.

<p>The postural instability is related to the occurrence of falls, disability and frailty in elderly.<br> <b>OBJECTIVE:</b> the assessment of the balance and fear of falling in elderly community.<br> <b>METHODS:</b> 58 community elderlies participated of this descriptive study in the city of Londrina/PR, mean age 73.3 SD = 7.52 years, 43 (74.1%) women and 15 (25.9%) men. The sample included only older people who showed no cognitive impairment, data collection was performed by interviews using the followings instruments: Mini Mental State Examination for assessment of the cognitive conditions, Assessment of Mobility Performance to evaluate the static and dynamic range, Effectiveness of Falls to verify the fear of falling and a questionnaire covering socio-demographic aspects and health conditions.<br> <b>RESULTS:</b> The subjects had good performance in the assessment of balance and gait with a median of 52 points of the total score, median of 35 for the domain balance and 17 points for gait. The research about fearing of falling showed that 54 (93.1%) of the respondents had concerns about falling. There was a significant association to the different degrees of concern about falling and occurrence of falls.<br> <b>CONCLUSION:</b> This study identified good balance in the elders studied, but despite the good performance in the assessment of static and dynamic balance the sample showed high fear of falling and high rate of falls.</p>