Intrinsic risk factors for falls in older patients

Abstract

Introduction: Falls are one of the common geriatric syndromes. The need to reduce the number of falls in the geriatric cohort is of critical importance due to fall-related negative effects on functional independence, quality of life, morbidity, mortality and health-related costs. Risk factors for falls may be classified as either intrinsic (person-specific) or extrinsic (environmental). Commonly falls may arise as a combination of these risk factors. Drug interactions and/or polypharmacy have also been found to widely contribute to falls. Pharmacists play an important role in falls prevention. Within the hospital setting, the clinical pharmacist is well centred to assess polypharmacy, co-morbidities and the use of fall risk increasing drugs (FRIDs). Aim: • To identify key intrinsic risk factors for falls in older patients and to seek to propose systems to reduce falls risk in an attempt to improve patient outcome.