Fear of falling in sensory impaired nursing home residents

Abstract

Objectives: Fear of falling (FOF) causes excess disability in nursing home (NH) residents and is associated with vision and hearing impairment. We explored factors associated with FOF in 225 NH residents with vision, hearing or dual sensory impairment.

Methods: We explored age, gender, cognition, depression, social engagement, illness burden, falls, physical function, mobility, falls self-efficacy and outcome expectancy as predictors of FOF using univariate logistic regression modeling, followed by multivariate analysis by group (visual, hearing, dual, total sample).

Results: Fifty-one percent of residents had FOF. Residents who had FOF reported better cognition, lower falls self-efficacy, and higher outcome expectancy in the total sample and in most impairment groups. Falls outcome expectancy predictedFOF in the total sample and in the visual and hearing sensory impairment groups.

Conclusion: When addressing FOF in NH residents it is important to address sensory status along with fears about falling to promote function.

Keywords:

• Falls
• fear of falling
• vision
• hearing
• sensory impairment
• disability
• nursing home

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the assistance of Paige L. Fisher, MS, and Danielle M. Sienko, BS, for their assistance with statistical analysis.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) disclose receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: NINR R01NR008777, Frank Morgan Jones and Tyson Funds.