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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Comparison of functional reach in fallers and nonfallers in an independent retirement community | | Author(s) | Holly Franzen, Heather Hunter, Christina Landreth |
| Journal title | Physical & Occupational Therapy in Geriatrics, vol 15, no 4, 1998 |
| Pages | pp 33-40 |
| Source | Haworth Document Delivery Center, Haworth Press, Inc., 10 Alice Street, Binghamton, NY 13904-1580, USA. |
| Keywords | Falls ; Mobility ; Evaluation ; Retirement communities ; Comparison ; United States of America. |
| Annotation | Balance disorders and postural control changes have been found to contribute to falls sustained by older people. Functional Reach (FR) has been proposed as a simple balance assessment tool that is valid, reliable, and sensitive to changes in balance. The aim of this study was to compare the FR of fallers and non-fallers living independently in a US retirement community, 52 subjects were dividided into three age groups and categorised by fall status. The first three correctly performed FR trials were measured and recorded. FR significantly decreases after the age of 84. There were no significant differences in the FR between fallers and non-fallers among older people living in the community. A simple standardised balance assessment tool needs to be developed to identify those older people at risk for falling. FR has the potential to be such a tool; however FR needs to be standardised according to the age and activity level of the population being tested. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-990225218 A |
| Classmark | OLF: C4: 4C: ROA: 48: 7T |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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