Depression and falls linked
A new study has found people suffering from depression are more likely to fall and points to a complex relationship between mental illness, a sense of balance, and falling in older people. Falls are a major public health issue across the world as falling is a frequent cause of accidental death in older people.
A new study has found people suffering from depression are more likely to fall and points to a complex relationship between mental illness, a sense of balance, and falling in older people.
Falls are a major public health issue across the world as falling is a frequent cause of accidental death in older people.
The recent study revealed, along with visual impairments and poor balance, an equally important factor associated with a person’s chance of falling is whether they suffer from depression.
Professor Stephen Lord of Neuroscience Research Australia (NeuRA) and his colleagues studied a population of people aged 65 years and older in Taiwan.
Published in the journal Age and Ageing, about 300 people, aged between 65 and 91 years living in southern Taiwan who were not taking anti-depressant medication, were measured using the Geriatric Depression Scale and underwent balance and mobility testing.
People were telephoned every month for two years to determine if, and when, they had fallen.
Depression was more common in people who fell compared to people who did not fall. There were 40% of recurrent fallers who were depressed, 28% of depressed people who fell once and only 16% of depressed people who did not fall.
“We’ve known depression and falls are connected in older people for some time, but we were never able to determine whether depression itself or anti-depressants increase the rate of falling,” Professor Lord explained.
“But anti-depressants are not commonly taken by the people we studied and so for the first time we were able to measure lifestyle factors, rates of depression, and how often people fell without the effect of any depression-related medications,” he adds.
This study showed, in addition to enhancing vision, strength and balance and health programs around the world designed to prevent falling in older people, also need to consider mental health.
“Now that we know depression and falls are interrelated, fall prevention strategies targeting older people need to also assess and treat depression to have the maximum impact,” Professor Lord concluded.
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