earticle

영어

This study aimed to provide evidence for the development of an algo-rithm to identify older adults with a high risk for repeated falls, along with strategies to prevent repeated falls, by analyzing the known physi-cal, psychological, and environmental factors related to falls in older adults. One hundred fifty-seven community-dwelling older adults aged 65 years or older who experienced a fall within the past year were en-rolled in this study. Participants’ physical, psychological, environmental, and fall prevention-related characteristics were surveyed using struc-tured questionnaires to identify the risk factors for repeated falls. The use of antidepressants, depression score, and compliance with fall pre-vention behaviors were found to differ significantly between the two groups, and the use of antidepressants and depression were found to be significant predictors of repeated falls. Depression should be con-sidered as a major variable when developing an algorithm to identify the risk of repeated falls among older adults living at home. Also, the practice of fall prevention behaviors was higher in the repeated-falls group, likely due to that group’s efforts to prevent additional falls.