Age-related fall risk characteristics in Japanese community-dwelling elderly

This study aimed to determine age-related fall risk characteristics among 2324 Japanese community-dwelling elderly through comparisons between young-old and old-old populations. Fall risk characteristics associated with “physical function”, “disease and physical symptom”, “behavior and character”, and “environment” were evaluated, and whether each individual has a high-risk symptom for each risk factor was assessed. The frequencies of individuals for all 16 risk types, which were determined by a combination of the four risk factors, were calculated. The prevalence of each risk type and the incidence of falling in each risk type were calculated within the young-old and old-old groups, and significant differences between these percentages were examined using the chi-square test. The prevalence of the no high-risk symptom group was significantly lower in the old-old group (17.0%) than in the young-old group (45.2%). Although there was no significant difference in the prevalence of the single high-risk symptom group, the prevalence of the two or more high-risk symptom groups was significantly higher in the old-old group. The incidence of fall among the elderly with high-risk symptoms did not change with age, although the incidence of fall with no high-risk symptom increased in the old-old group. Furthermore, high prevalence was observed in risk types with high-risk symptoms for “physical function” and “behavior and character”, particularly in the symptoms of gait, going up and down stairs, and fear of falling. These age-related differences are interesting and meaningful.