Abstract
Objective
To determine the characteristics of community-dwelling older adults receiving fall-related
rehabilitation.
Design
Cross-sectional analysis of the fifth round (2015) of the National Health and Aging
Trends Study (NHATS). Fall-related rehabilitation utilization was analyzed using weighted
multinomial logistic regression with SEs adjusted for the sample design.
Setting
In-person interviews of a nationally representative sample of community-dwelling older
adults.
Participants
Medicare beneficiaries from NHATS (N=7062).
Interventions
Not applicable.
Main Outcomes Measures
Rehabilitation utilization categorized into fall-related rehabilitation, other rehabilitation,
or no rehabilitation.
Results
Fall status (single fall: odds ratio [OR]=2.96; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.52–5.77;
recurrent falls: OR=14.21; 95% CI, 7.45–27.10), fear of falling (OR=3.11; 95% CI,
1.90–5.08), poor Short Physical Performance Battery scores (score 0: OR=6.62; 95%
CI, 3.31–13.24; score 1–4: OR=4.65; 95% CI, 2.23–9.68), and hip fracture (OR=3.24;
95% CI, 1.46–7.20) were all associated with receiving fall-related rehabilitation.
Lower education level (less than high school diploma compared with 4-y college degree:
OR=.21; 95% CI, .11–.40) and Hispanic ethnicity (OR=.37; 95% CI, .15–.87) were associated
with not receiving fall-related rehabilitation.
Conclusions
Hispanic older adults and older adults who are less educated are less likely to receive
fall-related rehabilitation. Recurrent fallers followed by those who fell once in
the past year were more likely to receive fall-related rehabilitation than are older
adults who have not had a fall in the past year.
Keywords
List of abbreviations:
BMI (body mass index), CI (confidence interval), NHATS (National Health and Aging Trends Study), OR (odds ratio), SPPB (Short Physical Performance Battery)To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: March 12, 2018
Footnotes
This work was supported in part by a grant from the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to the Center for Injury Epidemiology and Prevention at Columbia University (grant no. 1 R49 CE002096-01). Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It was also supported in part by the National Health and Aging Trends Study, which is sponsored by the United States Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Aging (grant no. NIA U01AG032947) through an agreement with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Disclosures: none.
Identification
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© 2018 by the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine
