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Falls in older adults

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

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Authors

Kenny, RA 
Romero-Ortuno, Roman  ORCID logo  https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3882-7447
Kumar, P 

Abstract

Falls are very common in older people, and for some the consequences are devastating. The clinical assessment, management and investigation of patients who present with falls can be challenging for non-specialists, and multiple guidelines and algorithms have been published to aid this. This article has been prepared as a concise reference that reviews the most recent evidence and covers the medical competencies on falls outlined in the Curriculum for General Internal Medicine (Acute) of the Federation of Royal Colleges of Physicians of the UK. As in the curriculum, the emphasis is on the acute setting. Important topics covered include the epidemiology of falls, definition and classification, causes and risk factors, cumulative effect of risk factors and concept of individual falling threshold, physical and psychosocial consequences of falling, medical falls assessment in acute settings, differentiation between falls and syncope, principles of multifactorial falls assessment and intervention, teamwork and communication skills, and evidence-based strategies for prevention, including the latest developments in falls prevention research.

Description

Keywords

accidental falls, diagnosis, disease management, explained fall, evidence-based medicine, geriatric assessment, practice guidelines as topic, prevention, quality of life, syncope, unexplained fall

Journal Title

Medicine

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

1357-3039
1365-4357

Volume Title

45

Publisher

Elsevier