Siv Sadigh

Falls and fall-related injuries among the elderly: a survey of residential-care facilities in a Swedish municipality

Injurious falls among the elderly are an increasing public-health problem in Sweden. One group particularly vulnerable to falls consists of elderly people living in residential-care facilities. The purpose of this study was to investigate the extent to which falls lead to injury within a defined population of elderly people in institutionalized care. All the elderly persons living in residential-care facilities in an urban Swedish municipality during the year 1997 (n = 469 institutional places). Falls and fall-related injuries were registered over a one-year period. Data were gathered by personnel at the time of the falls, using a form specifically designed for surveillance purposes. Of the 865 falls reported during the study period, 375 were among men, with an average age of 82 years, and 490 among women, with an average age of 85 years. Men were subject to falling to a greater extent than women. The most common location was the individuals own bedroom. Injuries were incurred in approximately one in four falls, and the head was the body part most frequently injured. Only 24 falls (2.8%) resulted in a fracture, of which 18 were hip fractures. Although elderly people living in residential-care facilities fall fairly often, serious injuries, in the form of fractures, are incurred to a relatively limited extent.

Emotional stress as a trigger of falls leading to hip or pelvic fracture. Results from the ToFa study – a case-crossover study among elderly people in Stockholm, Sweden

BackgroundSudden emotions may interfere with mechanisms for keeping balance among the elderly. The aim of this study is to analyse if emotional stress and specifically feelings of anger, sadness, worries, anxiety or stress, can trigger falls leading to hip or pelvic fracture among autonomous older people.MethodsThe study applied the case-crossover design and was based on data gathered by face to face interviews carried out in Stockholm between November 2004 and January 2006 at the emergency wards of two hospitals. Cases (n = 137) were defined as persons aged 65 and older admitted for at least one night due to a fall-related hip or pelvic fracture (ICD10: S72 or S32) and meeting a series of selection criteria. Results are presented as relative risks with 95% confidence intervals.ResultsThere was an increased risk for fall and subsequent hip or pelvic fracture for up to one hour after emotional stress. For anger there was an increased relative risk of 12.2 (95% CI 2.7–54.7), for sadness of 5.7 (95% CI 1.1–28.7), and for stress 20.6 (95% CI 4.5–93.5) compared to periods with no such feelings.ConclusionEmotional stress seems to have the potential to trigger falls and subsequent hip or pelvic fracture among autonomous older people. Further studies are needed to clarify how robust the findings are – as the number of exposed cases is small – and the mechanisms behind them – presumably balance and vision impairment in stress situation.

Non-pharmaceutical prevention of hip fractures – a cost-effectiveness analysis of a community-based elderly safety promotion program in Sweden

BackgroundElderly injuries are a recognized public health concern and are due to two factors; osteoporosis and accidental falls. Several osteoporosis pharmaceuticals are considered cost-effective, but intervention programs aiming at preventing falls should also be subjected to economic evaluations. This study presents a cost-effectiveness analysis of a community-based elderly safety promotion program.MethodsA five-year elderly safety promotion program combining environmental structural changes with individually based measures was implemented in a community in the metropolitan area of Stockholm, Sweden. The community had around 5,500 inhabitants aged 65+ years and a first hip fracture incidence of 10.7 per 1,000 in pre-intervention years 1990–1995. The intervention outcome was measured as avoided hip fractures, obtained from a register-based quasi-experimental longitudinal analysis with several control areas. The long-term consequences in societal costs and health effects due to the avoided hip fractures, conservatively assumed to be avoided for one year, were estimated with a Markov model based on Swedish data. The analysis holds the societal perspective and conforms to recommendations for pharmaceutical cost-effectiveness analyses.ResultsTotal societal intervention costs amounted to 6.45 million SEK (in Swedish krona 2004; 1 Euro = 9.13 SEK). The number of avoided hip fractures during the six-year post-intervention period was estimated to 14 (0.44 per 1,000 person-years). The Markov model estimated a difference in societal costs between an individual that experiences a first year hip fracture and an individual that avoids a first year hip fracture ranging from 280,000 to 550,000 SEK, and between 1.1 and 3.2 QALYs (quality-adjusted life-years, discounted 3%), for males and females aged 65–79 years and 80+ years. The cost-effectiveness analysis resulted in zero net costs and a gain of 35 QALYs, and the do-nothing alternative was thus dominated.ConclusionThe community-based elderly safety promotion program aiming at preventing accidental falls seems as cost-effective as osteoporosis pharmaceuticals.

Participation, resource mobilization and financial incentives in community-based health promotion: an economic evaluation perspective from Sweden.

Local community participation is an important objective for many health promotion interventions, but it hinges on the incentives for local organizations to participate. Both aspects might be explored with information obtained from economic evaluations, illustrated in this study with data from a cost-effectiveness analysis of an elderly safety promotion programme implemented in Sweden. Previously, resource mobilization has been used as a process indicator for successful community participation. We propose that resource mobilization can be measured as the proportion of total intervention costs paid by collaborators. In the case presented here, local collaborators contributed 50 per cent of the total intervention costs (SEK 6.45 million, in Swedish krona 2004; 1 USD = 7.35 SEK), while participants, i.e. the elderly in the intervention area, contributed 13 per cent and the remainder, 37 per cent, was paid by project funds. In a subsector financial analysis, the distribution of costs and financial benefits from interventions among different sectors in society is described. The estimated financial benefits in the case were divided between the health-care system (SEK 2.5 million), the local authority (SEK 3.7 million) and the elderly and their relatives (SEK 0.3 million). The only net beneficiary was the local authority. In the case presented here, the health promotion objective of local community participation was achieved as half of the total costs was mobilized from local collaborators. The local community participation objective was supported by financial incentives for at least one key collaborator.

Statistical modelling needed to find the effects from a community-based elderly safety promotion program

BACKGROUND Multiple control areas and time-series analyses have been recommended for effect evaluations of community-based health promotion. Large fluctuations, maybe due to chance, among the areas and over the years might obscure the intervention effect. METHODS A quasi-experimental time-series analysis with several control areas was performed as an effect evaluation of a community-based elderly safety promotion program. The program was implemented during 1995-99 in a community in the Stockholm Metropolitan area (population +65 years: 5500; number of first hip fractures in 1995: 60). Four control areas were selected based on similar hip fracture-related characteristics as the intervention community, complemented with two larger control areas. The time series covered 6 years pre-intervention (1990-95) and 6 years post-intervention (1996-2001). The study population was divided into two age groups and gender, resulting in 28 panels. The first hip fracture incidence was obtained from the Swedish national in-patient register. RESULTS The time series revealed no discernible pattern, and conventional analyses showed no conclusive results. A multivariate analysis, examining the time trends by employing the intra-annual and intra-panel variance, revealed the underlying trends in hip fracture rates. Comparisons between predicted numbers of hip fractures in the intervention and control areas was enabled, which resulted in 14 less hip fractures in the intervention community than expected from the control communities. If one extreme value was altered, the result changed considerably. CONCLUSION Effect evaluations of community-based health promotion programs using time-series from small communities might give faulty results, if statistical modelling is not employed.