Why Do Healthy Older Adults Fall?: Behavioral and Environmental Risks

Falls among elders at senior centers may be due more to behavioral and environmental risks than to impaired health, strength, and balance. We monitored 222 older adults at senior centers weekly for two years and documented 242 falls; their location (outdoors: inside the home, or in transition areas, such as garage or patio), activities associated with the fall, and consequences of the fall, such as parts of the body that received the impact of the fall and the associated level of injury. As hypothesized, healthy elderly fell more often outdoors and in transition areas than inside their home. They fell most often due to inattention and in association with hazardous activities.