Association between falls and cognitive performance among community-dwelling older people: a cross-sectional study

Falls among older people have a negative impact on health and therefore constitute a public health problem. Cognitive decline can also accompany the aging process, and both conditions lead to significant increases in morbidity and mortality in this population.

To analyze the cognitive performance of older people, classified as non-fallers, sporadic fallers and recurrent fallers, and investigate the relationship between falls and cognition.

Cross-sectional study conducted in the interior of the state of São Paulo, Brazil.

Evaluations on 230 older people were conducted. They were divided into three groups: non-fallers, sporadic fallers (one fall) and recurrent fallers (two or more falls). The Mini-Mental State Examination, Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer's Disease (CERAD), Brief Cognitive Screening Battery (BCSB), Cambridge Examination for Mental Disorders of the Elderly (CAMDEX) similarities subtest and digit span test were applied.

In multinomial logistic regression, being a recurrent faller was significantly associated with lower scores in the CERAD word list (odds ratio, OR = 0.92; 95% confidence interval, CI, 0.86-0.98; P = 0.01), in CERAD constructive praxis (OR = 0.88; 95% CI, 0.79-0.98; P = 0.02), in BCSB figure list memory (OR = 0.94; 95% CI, 0.89-0.99; P = 0.02) and in verbal fluency (OR = 0.89; 95% CI, 0.81-0.97; P = 0.01). Recurrent fallers also had lower scores in these same tests, compared with sporadic fallers.

Cognitive impairment, especially in the domains of memory and executive functioning, can influence occurrences of recurrent falls.