Mortality and profiles of community-dwelling fallers. Results from the EPIDOS cohort

To assess long-term survival of community-dwelling elderly women after a fall according to various characteristics of whom four falling profiles.

The study included 329 women (mean age±SD: 84±3.5 years). Phone interviews were conducted every four months over four years to investigate the occurrence of falls and fill out a specific questionnaire. The vital status was checked up to 13 years after these four years. An accelerated failure-time model was used to estimate the effect of the falling profiles on women survival.

During the four-year follow-up, 86 women (26%) belonged to the "outside falls" profile, 63 (19%) to "environmental falls", 140 (43%) to "inside falls", and 40 (12%) to "falls from height". At 13 years, the survival probability was estimated at 20.8% [95% CI: 16.4-25.2%]. On average, women with "inside falls" had shorter survivals in comparison with each of the other falling profiles. Kaplan-Meier survival curves showed also shorter survivals of these women vs. all other women grouped together (HR=1.33 [1.02-1.73], p=0.03).

Elderly women with inside falls had shorter survivals than others. Indoor falls could be markers of an underlying frailty and should trigger adequate prevention and protection measures.