Chronic medical condition associated with increased risk of fall in old people: a review

Abstract

Background: Falls are defined as unintentional events that happened when a person losing his/her center of gravity leading him/her to fall and without effort to restore balance, or this effort is ineffective. This review aims to provide and represent the most common updated comprehensive review of studies conducted on chronic medical condition that associated with a higher risk of fall in elderly people. Methods: A review was conducted up to May 2020 using the databases PubMed and Google Scholar. The exclusion criteria include papers published before 2000, papers linking risk of fall in acute medical condition, and papers linking risk of fall in people younger than 65. All duplicates were erased and screened by the title, abstract, and full text. Results: It was reported that chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is one of the chronic diseases with the highest prevalence of falls among the elderly. Anemia is a universal public health issue affecting human health, and it was associated with twice the incidence of recurrent falls. The risk of falls among the elderly reported that the risk of falls is approximately seven times higher in hypertensive patients than in those who are not affected by this morbidity with p-value 65 years and diabetes increases the risk of falling by 17-fold. The risk of fall in chronic kidney disease (CKD) patient aged 65-year old or older is higher compared to people without CKD. The fall frequency in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients appears to be age independent. Parkinson’s disease occurs in about 4%-5% of patients aged 85 years or older. People with dementia have a significantly higher risk of falling than those without. Depression is considered as one of the common risks of falling in the elderly, and the prevalence of open-angle glaucoma increases the double in diabetic people compared to nondiabetic. Conclusion: The studies found that patients with COPD, anemia, hypertension, orthostatic hypertension, diabetes mellitus, chronic kidney diseases, RA, Parkinson’s diseases, Alzheimer’s disease, depression, and glaucoma are at increased risk of a fall by direct and indirect ways. Assessment and fall prevention guidelines should be considered in patients with this chronic medical condition.