Very Frequent Fallers and Future Fall Injury: Continuous Risk Among Community-Dwelling Home Care Recipients

To examine the relationship between falls history, especially those with frequent recent falls, and future injurious falls.

Resident Assessment Instrument for Home Care records of 167,162 home care recipients in Ontario, Canada, were linked to emergency department records recording an injurious fall. Diagnosis codes further informed the nature of the injuries.

Persons with a high number of recent falls tended to be younger, and more likely to have Parkinson's or multiple sclerosis. Odds ratios for a future injurious fall, compared with zero recent falls, were as follows: 1.58 (1 fall), 1.91 (2 or 3 falls), 2.54 (4-8 falls), 3.07 (9 or more falls). Injuries among those with multiple recent falls were more likely to be head injuries with an open wound.

Persons reporting high number of recent falls were at the greatest risk of a future injurious fall and should receive the greatest attention in care planning.