FALLS AMONG COMMUNITY-DWELLING PSYCHOGERIATRIC PATIENTS

Although increasing interest has been focused on falling in the elderly, little is known about the incidence and consequence of falls in psychogeriatric outpatients. We conducted a 1-year prospective study of falling in 102 community-dwelling elderly patients with psychiatric morbidity (mean age: 70 years) and 100 mentally intact elderly patients (controls, mean age: 74 years). The subject group comprised 79 patients with depression, 14 with dementia and nine with combined disease based on DSM-III-R criteria. Overall, 216 falls in the subject group and 54 in the controls were reported. At the end of the study, recurrent fallers aged 75 years and older showed significant physical deterioration. Multiple logistic regression analysis of selected medical and demographic variables indicated that the most influential variable regarding falling of the subjects was severity of depression rated using the Hamilton scale. Unexpectedly, the analysis revealed that the use of antidepressants was associated with a lower likelihood of falling. On the basis of the two variables, 75% of all respondents were correctly classified as fallers or non-fallers.