MedicalResearch.com Interview with study leaders:
Shalini Selvarajah MD, MPH
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Center for Surgical Trials and Outcomes Research
Department of Surgery
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Baltimore, MD 21287 and
Edward R. Hammond, MD, PhD, MPH
Research Associate
International Center for Spinal Cord Injury
Hugo W. Moser Research Institute at Kennedy Krieger Institute
Baltimore, MD 21205.
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?
Researchers:
· Between 2007 and 2010, the number of serious traumatic
spinal cord injuries (TSCI) in the United States (U.S.) increased, doing so more rapidly among older adults (age ≥65 years) compared to younger adults (age <65 years). Injuries from falls have overtaken
motor vehicle crashes as the main cause of adult TSCI.
· Older adults are more likely to experience worse outcomes compared to younger adults even after taking into account severity and mechanism of injury, as well as other co-morbid conditions. Older adults are 4 times more likely to die in the emergency room, and if admitted to inpatient care, they are 6 times more likely to die as inpatients compared to younger adults.
· Emergency room charges for treatment of acute TSCI among adults increased 20% from $3,342 per encounter in 2007 to $4,024 per encounter in 2010 even after accounting for the cost of inflation.
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Judy A. Stevens PhD
National Center for Injury Prevention and Control
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Atlanta
GA 30341
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Stevens: The fall death rate among persons aged 65 and older has been increasing rapidly. We used vital statistics data to examine the circumstances and contributing conditions to fall deaths.
We found that of 21,649 fall deaths in 2010, the largest proportion (35%) occurred from falling on the same level, followed by falling on stairs or steps (6.5%). From 1999 to 2010, there was a trend toward more specific reporting of falls circumstances. However, information about the circumstances of 49% of the 2010 fall deaths was not available.
In 2010, 49% of fall deaths involved a head injury and 30% involved a hip fracture. The most important contributing causes to fall deaths were circulatory diseases, especially hypertension, and respiratory diseases.
Factors that may partially explain the rapid increase in the fall death rate include changing trends in the death rates for underlying chronic diseases strongly associated with falls, such as reductions in cardiovascular disease deaths, as well as better reporting on death certificates of falls as the underlying cause of death.
