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Even Short Falls Can Be Deadly For The Elderly

While ground level falls may seem relatively harmless, they can actually lead to severe injury and death in elderly individuals, according to a recent study.

In contrast to falls from greater heights, ground-level falls – essentially falls from a standing position, with feet touching the ground prior to the fall – have traditionally been considered minor injuries. But, the new study published in "The Journal of Trauma: Injury, Infection, and Critical Care," found elderly adults – 70 years or older – who experience ground-level falls are much more likely to be severely injured and less likely to survive their injuries compared to adults younger than 70 years. Elderly patients are three times as likely to die following a ground-level fall compared to their under-70 counterparts.

Trauma surgeon and researcher Dr. Julius Cheng conducted the largest analysis to date of trauma patients experiencing ground-level falls. His team identified 57,302 patients with ground-level falls from 2001 through 2005 using the National Trauma Data Bank and analyzed demographics, type and severity of injuries and final outcomes.

“There is the potential to minimize what people see as a relatively trivial issue, such as slipping and falling on a wet tile floor. Our research shows that falls from low levels shouldn’t be underestimated in terms of how bad they can be, especially in older patients,” said Cheng, associate professor in the Department of Surgery at the University of Rochester Medical Center and lead author of the study, in a press release.

Between 1993 and 2003, there was a 55 percent increase in the rate of fatal falls for elderly adults. Because of the increasing age in the general population, the number of elderly patients visiting the emergency department with ground-level falls is increasing, and will likely continue to rise in the future. It is now estimated that 30 percent of adults older than 65 years will experience an unintentional fall each year.

Cheng’s team found that approximately 4.5 percent of elderly patients (70 years and above) died following a ground-level fall, compared to 1.5 percent of non-elderly patients. Elderly patients remained in the hospital and the intensive care unit longer and only 22 percent were able to function on their own after they left the hospital, compared to 41 percent of non-elderly patients.

Though low-level falls can potentially lead to significant injury and death, the reality is that almost three-quarters of patients with ground-level falls are not severely injured. Given the limited resources available to most medical centers across the United States and the increasing number of elderly patients needing treatment, Cheng’s team identified two major predictors of death in patients who have experienced ground-level falls: Age older than 70 years and a Glasgow Coma Scale (a widely used indicator of brain injury) score of less than 15. These specific factors may help emergency department staff better determine which patients have a higher risk of death and are more likely to require aggressive evaluation and treatment.

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