Incidence of falling injuries leading to medical treatment in the elderly

Abstract

The incidence of falling injuries leading to medical treatment was described by sex, age, marital status, education, amount of daily motion, self-perceived health, mechanism of fall and severity of injury. Material was collected regarding persons aged 65 years or over seeking medical treatment due to a fall during a period of one year. Altogether 3.8% of the elderly population (men: 2.5%; women: 4.4%) sought medical treatment due to a fall at least once during this year. When repeated falls were taken into account, the total incidence rate was 5.5 per 100 persons per year. The cumulative incidence rate (percentage of persons seeking medical treatment due to a fall) of women was higher than that of the men and in both sexes it increased with age. It was also higher for unmarried, widowed or divorced persons than for married ones, and higher in less educated persons than in better educated ones. It was also higher in persons with a low amount of daily motion or poor self-perceived health than in persons with a moderate or high amount of daily motion or good health status. The multivariate analyses based on log-linear models showed two-term interactions. A low amount of daily motion, poor self-perceived health and high age were independently related to the occurrence of a fall leading to medical treatment in both sexes.