Falls among older adults with sarcopenia dwelling in nursing home or community: A meta-analysis

To assess and quantify sarcopenia as a risk for falls among community-dwelling older people and nursing home older persons.

Prospective cohort studies that evaluated the association between sarcopenia and falls in older adults were identified via a systematic literature search of Medline (via Ovid), PubMed, EMBASE, and the Cochrane CENTRAL Library from database inception until October 15, 2018, in English and Chinese.

10 studies (10,073 participants) were included in the meta-analysis. Among older adults, having sarcopenia was significantly associated with a higher risk of falls, compared to older adults without sarcopenia (pooled OR-odds ratio = 1.52, 95% CI-confidence interval: 1.32-1.77, I² = 39.1%). In addition, the results of subgroup analysis indicated that male participants with sarcopenia had a higher risk of falls than mixed gender participants with sarcopenia (pooled OR = 1.72, 95% CI: 1.36-2.18 versus pooled OR = 1.41, 95% CI: 1.16-1.70). Other subgroup analyses were conducted using different study follow-up periods (>1 year versus ≤ 1 year) (pooled OR 1.63, 95% CI: 1.38-1.92 versus 1.20, 95% CI: 0.87-1.65). In addition, community-dwelling older people with sarcopenia was significantly increase risk of fall, compared with non-sarcopenia (pooled OR = 1.69, 95% CI: 1.43-2.00), whereas it was not found among nursing home residents (pooled OR = 1.12, 95% CI: 0.84-1.51). Furthermore, sarcopenia definition subgroup analysis found that older adults with sarcopenia increase the risk of falls when using EWGSOP (pooled OR = 1.43, 95% CI: 1.19-1.72), FNIH (pooled OR = 1.82, 95% CI: 1.39-2.37), AWGS (pooled OR = 7.68, 95% CI: 1.41-41.80), respectively.

The present study found that sarcopenia is a risk factor for falls among community-dwelling older people, but not among nursing home older persons. Future research is needed to provide evidence for specific interventions aimed at treating sarcopenia and preventing falls among older adults dwelling in the community.