You are here

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Treatment
Review: several interventions reduce fear of falling in older people living in the community

https://doi.org/10.1136/ebn.11.1.21

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    R Zijlstra

    Correspondence to: Ms R Zijlstra, Maastricht University, Maastricht, the Netherlands; R.Zijlstra@zw.unimaas.nl

    QUESTION

    In older people in the community, which interventions reduce fear of falling?

    METHODS

    Data sources:

    Medline, EMBASE/Excerpta Medica, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, and PsycINFO (to 2005); reference lists; and 14 experts.

    Study selection and assessment:

    randomised controlled trials (RCTs) that assessed fear of falling in community-dwelling people who had a mean age ⩾65 years. Studies of people with a specific medical condition were excluded. 19 RCTs met the selection criteria. Interventions included multifactorial interventions (8 RCTs), tai chi (3 RCTs), exercise interventions (4 RCTs), balance interventions (6 RCTs), hip protectors (1 RCT), and a fall risk-factor intervention (1 RCT). Some RCTs assessed ⩾1 intervention. 3 interventions had the explicit aim of reducing fear of falling. Duration of interventions ranged from 1 home visit to 1 hour/week for 1 year. Study follow-up ranged from 1.5 …

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Source of funding: ZonMw—the Netherlands Organization for Health Research and Development; Care and Public Health Research Institute; Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Science of Maastricht University.