Midwest Surgical AssociationHealth care and socioeconomic impact of falls in the elderly
Section snippets
Methods
We retrospectively reviewed all admissions after falls in the 2008 calendar year for patients ≥75 years of age. We chose 75 as the age cutoff to reflect an older population to better assess the impact of falls on a frail elderly population with many comorbidities. The endpoints were mortality, 30-day readmission, and hospital costs for the index admission. Sex, age, and the type of fall were analyzed. Comorbidities considered were dementia, body mass index, coronary artery disease, acute
Results
In 2008, there were 708 patients 75 years of age and older who were admitted after a fall. The average length of stay was 5 days, with 4 days being the median. Males comprised one third of the patients and the average age was 85 years. Most events (89%) were simple falls from standing. Most patients (69%) were discharged to rehabilitation or extended-care facilities. Only 25% were discharged home and 76% of those required home health services. Functional activity was decreased in 19% of
Comments
Simple falls from standing in the elderly have a high morbidity and mortality and contribute significantly to health care costs. Our 30-day in-house mortality in this elderly trauma cohort was 6%, with those having cardiac comorbidities being at the highest risk. Atrial fibrillation was an independent risk factor by multivariate analysis, whereas anticoagulation was not, which is consistent with our previous published data from the same period showing that at our institution there no increase
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