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Turkish Journal of Medical Sciences

Author ORCID Identifier

NESLİHAN KAYAHAN SATIŞ: 0000-0002-6802-7926

SULTAN KESKİN DEMİRCAN: 0000-0002-1373-4359

MEHMET', 'MEHMET ILKİN NAHARCI: 0000-0003-2730-7144

DOI

10.55730/1300-0144.5882

Abstract

Background/aim: Fall risk assessment is crucial for older adults because falls are associated with morbidity and mortality. This study investigated the relationship of gait speed (GS) and handgrip strength (HGS) with falls and assessed whether cognition mediates this causality.Materials and methods: The study was conducted in a tertiary referral geriatric outpatient clinic. The physical performance of participants was evaluated by GS and HGS. All falls the previous year were noted and factors associated with falls were analyzed using multivariate regression analysis.Results: A total of 1,018 older adults, with a mean age of 78.8 years (±7.2), of whom 64.2% were female, were stratified into two groups.: “cognitively impaired” (n:331) and “cognitively healthy” (n:660). In the population, 22.8% (n = 226) had a history of falls in the previous year. The rates of low GS and HGS were 29.1% and 80.6%, respectively. After adjusting for confounders, low GS (OR = 2.01, 95% CI: 1.10-3.77, p = 0.019), low HGS (OR = 3.57, 95% CI: 1.10-11.35, p = 0.038), and low GS plus low HGS (OR = 4.52, 95% CI: 1.14-15.78, p = 0.024) in the cognitively impaired group and low GS (OR = 2.01, 95% CI: 1.39-3.52, p = 0.003) in the cognitively healthy group were independently associated with falls.Conclusion: GS is an efficient and practical assessment tool for identifying older adults at risk of falls, regardless of their cognitive status.

Keywords

Anticholinergic load, fraility, older adults, pre-fraility

First Page

1033

Last Page

1042

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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