Risk of Falling Among Elderly and Its Relation to Quality of Life

Risk of falling is commonly reported among older adults and can impact negatively on physical and social activities, mood and quality of life. A differential research design employed to know the effects of age, gender and socio-economic status on risk of falling among 480 elderly revealed that risk of falling was significantly higher among older elderly (75 years and above) compared to young old (60-74 years) in both the regions of Northern Karnataka and Upper Assam. In urban area of Northern Karnataka region, 75.0 per cent of young old were with while medium risk of falling whereas 65.0 per cent of the older elderly had high risk of falling. In rural area, both young old (53.3%) and older elderly (50.0%) were at high risk of falling. In rural Upper Assam region, both young old (80.0%) and older elderly (52.0%) had medium risk of falling, whereas, in urban area, 94.3 per cent of the young old were at medium level of risk of falling, while 75.8 per cent of the older elderly had high risk of falling. Gender and socioeconomic status did not influence the risk of falling in both the regions. Significant association was noticed with risk of falling and quality of life among elderly of rural northern Karnataka. The tools used were Global Physical Activity Questionnairesubscale Risk of Falling developed by WHO (2005), Older People’s Quality of life Questionnaire (OPQOL-35) developed by Bowling (2009) and Socio-economic status developed by Aggarwal et al. (2005).