To assess fall risk in the elderly OPD patients using conventional fall risk tool and Kinesis QTUG device: A comparative study

Abstract

Background

Falls are common among the elderly population and are usually multifactorial. Most of the falls are preventable if the risk factors are identified early and addressed. The primary objective was to assess the agreement between the fall-risk assessment as measured by the digital sensor–based Kinesis Quantitative Timed Up and Go (QTUG) device and conventional Fall Risk Assessment Tool (FRAT) in elderly Indian population.

Methods

The study was conducted in a tertiary care hospital of Western India. Conventional fall-risk assessment was done using the FRAT score and digital sensor–based fall risk was assessed using the Kinesis QTUG device. Agreement between both the fall-risk assessments was done using unweighted kappa.

Results

The mean age was 68.54 (±2.62) years with females constituting 53.3%. The mean timed-up-and-go test score was 20.33(±7.7) seconds. A total of 253 falls were noted for 147 elderly individuals. Combined fall risk using the Kinesis QTUG device showed that 59.56% (218/366) elderly patients had a high fall risk, whereas the FRAT score showed high fall risk in only 1.36% (5/366) elderly patients. There was a poor agreement between the two tools with unweighted kappa of 0.634.

Conclusions

Prevalence of falls in elderly in the last year was 40% in our study. There was a poor agreement in fall-risk estimate using the Kinesis QTUG device and FRAT score with an unweighted kappa value of 0.634.