Attitudes of Slovenian elderly people towards fall prevention

Abstract

Background: The elderly are defined as persons aged over 64 years. Theproportion of elderly people in the population is increasing and willkeep growing with increasing life expectancy. Falls are the most commoncause of injuries in the elderly population and the number offall-related injuries is expected to further increase. The purpose ofthis study was to determine the attitude of elderly people living athome towards the need for physical activity to maintain muscle strengthand balance, their desire to participate in programmes to improve theirmuscle strength and balance, and their attitude to a home safetyassessment.Patients and methods: The Institute of Public Health Kranj participatedin the WP4 of the International Apollo study. The main objective of thestudy was to prepare recommendations on fall prevention among olderpeople in the EU, and to measure their attitude towards exercise. TheSlovenian part of the research took place at the Institute of PublicHealth Kranj. Randomly selected elderly patients who visited theInstitute's vaccination clinic in November 2007 were asked toparticipate in the study, and 277 of them (age range: 65 to 89 years)were involved in the study. There were 183 (66.1%) female and 94(33.9%) male participants (mean age: 73 years).Results: The results showed that 65% of the participants strongly orpartly agreed to participate in programmes to increase muscle strength,24% remained undecided, and 10.9% did not want to be included in suchprogrammes; 46% of strongly or partially agreed to have an assessmentof their home safety, 32.5% of them remained undetermined and 21.5%disagreed with the idea. The.2 test confirmed statistically significantdifferences in the attitude of elderly people towards training programmeincluding activities of daily living (p<0.01), the level of leisure-timephysical activity (p<0.04) and the self-assessed current health statuscompared with health status of other people of the same age (p<0.02). Nostatistically significant differences were found regarding olderpeople's attitude towards home safety assessment.Conclusion: Falls occur as a result of ageing or deterioration ofphysical and mental functions. Older people often fall because of musclemass loss, balance disorders or vision defects. The number of falls cantherefore be reduced by improving their muscle strength and balance byregular exercise and safer home environment. The data obtained, i. e.the views, attitudes and desires of older people regarding theparticipation in training programmes and home safety assessments willhelp us better understand this population group, and thus open up newapproaches to the formulation and promotion of programmes for olderpeople.