A Randomized, Controlled Trial of Fall Prevention Programs and Quality of Life in Older Fallers

doi:10.1111/j.1532-5415.2007.01146.x

If you are seeing this message, you may be experiencing temporary network problems. Please wait a few minutes and refresh the page. If the problem persists, you may wish to report it to your local Network Manager.

It is also possible that your web browser is not configured or not able to display style sheets. In this case, although the visual presentation will be degraded, the site should continue to be functional. We recommend using the latest version of Microsoft or Mozilla web browser to help minimise these problems.

Wiley InterScience

Journal of the American Geriatrics Society

Volume 55 Issue 4, Pages 499 - 506

Published Online: 5 Mar 2007

Journal compilation 2010 The American Geriatrics Society/Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Published on behalf of

Go to Society Site

< Previous Abstract | Next Abstract >

Save Article to My Profile Download Citation Request Permissions

Abstract | References | Full Text: HTML, PDF (Size: 147K) | Related Articles | Citation Tracking

A Randomized, Controlled Trial of Fall Prevention Programs and Quality of Life in Older Fallers

Mau-Roung Lin, PhD ^* , Steven L. Wolf, PhD ^† , Hei-Fen Hwang, MS ^‡ , Sheng-You Gong, MS ^* , and Chih-Yi Chen, MS ^*

From the ^*Institute of Injury Prevention and Control, College of Public Health and Nutrition, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China; ^†Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, School of Medicine, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia; and ^‡Department of Nursing, National Taipei College of Nursing, Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China.

Address correspondence to Dr. Mau-Roung Lin, Institute of Injury Prevention and Control, Taipei Medical University, 250 Wu-Hsing Street, Taipei 110, Taiwan, Republic of China. E-mail: mrlin@tmu.edu.tw

KEYWORDS

education • exercise • elderly people • fall • environment • quality of life

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVES: To compare the effects of three fall-prevention programs (education (ED), home safety assessment and modification (HSAM), and exercise training (ET)) on quality of life (QOL), functional balance and gait, activities of daily living (ADLs), fear of falling, and depression in adults aged 65 and older.

DESIGN: A 4-month randomized trial.

SETTING: Randomized, controlled trial.

PARTICIPANTS: One hundred fifty participants who had experienced a recent fall.

MEASUREMENTS: QOL was assessed according to the brief version of the World Health Organization Quality of Life instrument (WHOQOL-BREF), functional balance and gait according to functional reach and Tinetti balance and gait, ADLs according to the Older Americans Resources and Services questionnaire, fear of falling according to a visual analog scale, and depression level according to the Geriatric Depression Scale.

RESULTS: The score changes for the ET group were 2.1 points greater on the physical domain (95% confidence interval (CI)=−1.2–5.3), 3.8 points greater on the psychological domain (95% CI=0.7–7.0), and for the WHOQOL-BREF, 3.4 points greater on the social domain (95% CI=0.7–6.1) and 3.2 points greater on the environmental domain (95% CI=0.6–5.7) than for the ED group. The score change for each domain of the WHOQOL-BREF for the HSAM group was greater than that for the ED group, although these results were not statistically significant. The ET group also had greater improvements in functional reach, Tinetti balance and gait, and fear of falling than the ED group.

CONCLUSION: The QOL outcome supports the superiority of ET over the other two interventions in older people who have recently fallen. This finding also parallels those gathered from the functional measures.

DIGITAL OBJECT IDENTIFIER (DOI)

10.1111/j.1532-5415.2007.01146.x About DOI