A Prospective Study of Laboratory and Clinical Measures of Postural Stability to Predict Community-Dwelling Fallers

Abstract

Not all older adults with a reduction in balance ability reported a fall over a 6-month period. Of those who did, a combination of measures reflective of different aspects of mediolateral postural stability during a rapid step task, quiet stance, and movement to the limits of stability were best able to predict faller status, with nonfallers better predicted than fallers. These results emphasize the importance of the multifactorial nature of falls in the community-dwelling elderly population in that the clinical and laboratory measures did not predict a high proportion of fallers.