Fall Prevention Among Community Living Elderly

Gunilla Fahlstrom

Status: Completed

Conditions: Accidental Falls/Prevention and Control

Treatments: Other: Basic intervention; Other: Complete intervention

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT01705912

OLLGF01

OLLGF0112 (Other Identifier)

Details and patient eligibility

About

The purpose of this study is to assess effects of a home exercise program, supervised by assistant nurses with the aim of preventing falls.

Community living persons 65 years of age or older having a risk of falling were invited to participate. Participants were randomized to either training or control.

The training program was individually designed by a physiotherapist and the 5-month program performance was supervised in the partcipants home by eight home visits from an assistant nurse.

All participants received a visit from an occupational therapist who assessed the home and, if necessary, gave advice.

Full description

Falls among elderly are a major public health problem, but preventive interventions containing physical exercise and home improvement are available.

In this study the crucial question was to test whether unlicensed staff, assistant nurses, could be used for preventive work.

Estimation of study power gave that 170 participants in each group would be needed to detect a difference in days with falls, the main outcome measure.

Enrollment: 148 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 65+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• community living persons at least 65 years old
• independent walking ability with or without walking aid
• experienced at least one fall during the last 12 months
• ability to communicate and cooperate with study staff

Exclusion criteria

• ongoing physiotherapy treatment
• ongoing participation in exercise/acitivity containing balance and strength enhancing components
• a dementia diagnose
• mental disorder that affects possibility to communicate and cooperate
• other medical reason making participation inte the study inappropriate.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Supportive Care

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

---

148 participants in 2 patient groups

Training

Experimental group

Description:

Complete intervention i.e. basic intervention + individual training program.

Treatment:

Other: Complete intervention

Control

Active Comparator group

Description:

Basic intervention.

Treatment:

Other: Basic intervention