Do elderly people at more severe activity of daily living limitation stages fall more?

The aim of this study was to explore how activity of daily living (ADL) stages and the perception of unmet needs for home accessibility features associate with a history of falling.

Participants were from a nationally representative sample from the Second Longitudinal Survey of Aging conducted in 1994. The sample included 9250 community-dwelling persons 70 yrs or older. The associations of ADL stage and perception of unmet needs for home accessibility features with a history of falling within the past year (none, once, or multiple times) were explored after accounting for sociodemographic characteristics and comorbidities using a multinomial logistic regression model.

The adjusted relative risk of falling more than once peaked at 4.30 (95% confidence interval, 3.29-5.61) for persons with severe limitation (ADL-III) compared those with no limitation (ADL-0) then declined for those at complete limitation (ADL-IV). The adjusted relative risks of falling once and multiple times were 1.42 (95% confidence interval, 1.07-1.87) and 1.85 (95% confidence interval, 1.44-2.36), respectively, for those lacking home accessibility features.

Risk of falling appeared greatest for those whose homes lacked accessibility features and peaked at intermediate ADL limitation stages, presumably at a point when people have significant disabilities but sufficient function to remain partially active.