Abstract
Tendency to falling in older people, with and without cognitive impairment, living in an elderly home was assessed. A descriptive analytical study was carried out with 50 elderly people (25 males) aged between 60 - 85 years. Timed Up and Go (TUG) test and, Five Times Sit to Stand Test (FTSST) were used to determine risk of falling and functional lower extremity strength of each participant. The Folstein Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) and Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) were used to assess cognition.The cognitive scores were significantly lower in fallers compared to non-fallers (p=0.0001). Fallers demonstrated significantly poor lower extremity strength (p=0.0001). Older people with cognitive impairment demonstrated poor functional lower extremity strength than those without cognitive impairement (p=0.002). The difference in falling tendency between males and females was not statistically significant.
Highlights
Falls are a major health care problem for elderly people world wide
Five Times Sit to Stand Test (FTSST) was used to determine functional lower extremity strength and balance of each participant
Cognitive impairment was a common finding in the sample with 66% of elders demonstrating mild to severe cognitive deficits according to Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) and 44% of elders demonstrating moderate to severe cognitive deficits according to Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE)
Summary
Falls are a major health care problem for elderly people world wide. Falls are not random events and may occur due to physiological impairment, such as impaired balance, muscular weakness and slowed reaction time. Falls can be associated with cognitive impairment and is increasingly recognized as a problem. Even though cognitive impairment and falls in elderly have been studied separately, only a few studies have been conducted to assess the relationship of increased risks of falling with cognitive impairment [1,2,3]. Such studies have not been conducted in Asia and this has lead to deficiencies in planning preventive and management strategies. The current study examined cognitive impairments and evaluated the association between such impairment and risk of falling. The study aimed to identify an association between different categories of cognitive impairment and lower extremity strength
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