Risk factors for falls in older adults in a South African Urban Community

Background: Studies on falls in older adults have mainly been conducted in high income countries. Scant, if any, information exists on risk factors for falls in the older population of sub-Saharan African countries. Methods: A cross-sectional survey and a 12-month follow-up study were conducted to determine risk factors for falls in a representative multi-ethnic sample of 837 randomly selected ambulant community-dwelling subjects aged ≥65 years in three suburbs of Cape Town, South Africa. Logistic regression models were fitted to determine the association between (1) falls and (2) recurrent falls occurring during follow-up and their potential socio-demographic, self-reported medical conditions and physical assessment predictors. Results: Prevalence rates of 26.4 % for falls and 11 % for recurrent falls at baseline and 21.9 % for falls and 6.3 % for recurrent falls during follow-up. In both prospective analyses of falls and recurrent falls, history of previous falls, dizziness/vertigo, ethnicity (white or mixed ancestry vs black African) were significant predictors. However, poor cognitive score was a significant predictor in the falls analysis, and marital status (unmarried vs married) and increased time to perform the timed Up and Go test in the recurrent fall analysis but not in both. Other than the timed Up and Go test in recurrent falls analysis, physical assessment test outcomes were not significant predictors of falls. Conclusion: Our study provides simple criteria based on demographic characteristics, medical and physical assessments to identify older persons at increased risk of falls. History taking remains an important part of medical practice in the determination of a risk of falls in older patients. Physical assessment using tools validated in developed country populations may not produce results needed to predict a risk of falls in a different setting

Comparing the predictive accuracy of frailty, comorbidity, and disability for mortality: a 1-year follow-up in patients hospitalized in geriatric wards

Martin Ritt,1,2 Julia Isabel Ritt,2 Cornel Christian Sieber,1,3 Karl-Günter Gaßmann1,2 1Institute for Biomedicine of Ageing (IBA), Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), Nürnberg, 2Department of Internal Medicine III (Medicine of Ageing), Geriatrics Centre Erlangen, Hospital of the Congregation of St Francis Sisters of Vierzehnheiligen, Erlangen, 3Department of Internal Medicine and Geriatrics, Hospital of the Order of St John of God, Regensburg, Germany Background: Studies evaluating and comparing the power of frailty, comorbidity, and disability instruments, together and in parallel, for predicting mortality are limited.Objective: This study aimed to evaluate and compare the measures of frailty, comorbidity, and disability in predicting 1-year mortality in geriatric inpatients.Design: Prospective cohort study.Patients and setting: A total of 307 inpatients aged ≥65 years in geriatric wards of a general hospital participated in the study.Measurements: The patients were evaluated in relation to different frailty, comorbidity, and disability instruments during their hospital stays. These included three frailty (the seven-category Clinical Frailty Scale [CFS-7], a 41-item frailty index [FI], and the FRAIL scale), two comorbidity (the Cumulative Illness Rating Scale for Geriatrics [CIRS-G] and the comorbidity domain of the FI [Comorbidity-D-FI]), and two disability instruments (disability in basic activities of daily living [ADL-Katz] and the instrumental and basic activities of daily living domains of the FI [IADL/ADL-D-FI]). The patients were followed-up over 1 year.Results: Using FI, CIRS-G, Comorbidity-D-FI, and ADL-Katz, this study identified a patient group with a high (≥50%) 1-year mortality rate in all of the patients and the two patient subgroups (ie, patients aged 65–82 years and ≥83 years). The CFS-7, FI, FRAIL scale, CIRS-G, Comorbidity-D-FI, and IADL/ADL-D-FI (analyzed as full scales) revealed useful discriminative accuracy for 1-year mortality (ie, an area under the curve >0.7) in all the patients and the two patient subgroups (all P<0.001). Thereby, CFS-7 (in all patients and the two patient subgroups) and FI (in the subgroup of patients aged ≥83 years) showed greater discriminative accuracy for 1-year mortality compared to other instruments (all P<0.05).Conclusion: All the different instruments emerged as suitable tools for risk stratification in geriatric inpatients. Among them, CFS-7, and in those patients aged ≥83 years, also the FI, might most accurately predict 1-year mortality in the aforementioned group of individuals. Keywords: frailty, comorbidity, disability, hospitalized geriatric patients, older people, health status, survival&nbsp

Changes of a frailty index based on common blood and urine tests during a hospital stay on geriatric wards predict 6-month and 1-year mortality in older people

Jakob Jäger,1,2 Cornel Christian Sieber,1,3 Karl-Günter Gaßmann,1,2 Martin Ritt1,2 1Institute for Biomedicine of Ageing (IBA), Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), D-90408 Nürnberg, Germany; 2Department of Internal Medicine III (Medicine of Ageing), Geriatrics Center Erlangen, Malteser Hospital Erlangen, D-91054 Erlangen, Germany; 3Department of General Internal Medicine and Geriatrics, Hospital of the Order of St John of God, D-93049 Regensburg, Germany Background: We aimed to evaluate the abilities of a 21-item frailty index based on laboratory blood and urine tests (FI-Lab21) assessed at different points in time, ie, at admission to hospital (FI-Lab21admission) and before discharge from hospital (FI-Lab21discharge), and the change of the FI-Lab21 during the hospital stay to predict 6-month and 1-year mortality in hospitalized geriatric patients. Methods: Five hundred hospitalized geriatric patients aged ≥65 years were included in this analysis. Follow-up data were acquired after a period of 6 months and 1 year. Results: The FI-Lab21admission and FI-Lab21discharge scores were 0.33±0.15 and 0.31±0.14, respectively (P<0.001). The FI-Lab21admission and FI-Lab21discharge both predicted 6-month and 1-year mortality (areas under the receiver operating characteristic curves: 0.72, 0.72, 0.77, and 0.75, respectively, all P<0.001). The predictive abilities for 6-month and 1-year mortality of the FI-Lab21admission were inferior compared with those of the FI-Lab21discharge (all P<0.05). Patients with a reduction in or stable FI-Lab21 score during the hospital stay revealed lower 6-month and 1-year mortality rates compared with the persons whose FI-Lab21 score increased during the hospital stay (all P<0.05). After adjustment for age, sex, and FI-Lab21admission, each 1% decrease in the FI-Lab21 during the hospital stay was associated with a decrease in 6-month and 1-year mortality of 5.9% and 5.3% (both P<0.001), respectively. Conclusion: The FI-Lab21 assessed at admission or discharge and the changes of the FI-Lab21 during the hospital stay emerged as interesting and feasible approaches to stratify mortality risk in hospitalized geriatric patients. Keywords: geriatric wards, frailty, frailty index, cumulative deficit, older peopl