Objective: To estimate the prevalence of falls in people over 65 years old institutionalized and to know the elderly profile of those who suffered falls in the last 12 months.
Method: It was performed a transversal-descriptive study. The instruments used were the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE-35 Lobo, 1979) and the Questionnaire (1989) for the study of falls in the elderly. It was collected the following variables: age, sex, BMI, weight, height, assistive devices for ambulation, fear of falling, falling place, difficulty in actions, sort of footwear, fall time, lighting at the fall time, objects that could favour the fall, type of fall and contact with the health system.
Results: All of the participants in this study were 51 valid elderly and institutionalized. In the last 12 months, 21 individuals suffered a fall. This is equivalent to 41,17% in both sexes, being a 61,91% for women and 38,09% for men. The BMI average in all of the study participants amounts to 26,6 kg/m2. By the MCA, it was observed how the overweight variable is, without any doubt, linked with suffering a fall. In the Mantel-Haenszel test, it was obtained that women between 85-90 years old had a 42% more probability of falling. The places with the highest prevalence of falls were inside the nursing home with 71,4%. The women reported a fear sensation in order to suffer a second fall by 84,6% and the men by 75% over the total falls which were produced in both sexes. From the elderly who suffered falls, 52,38% used technical assistance to ambulate, compared to the 47,61% who didn't use. The footwear, which was used the most at the time of the fall, was slippers with 38,1%. Most falls took place in the morning with a percentage of 47,6% and the 90,5% of the falls occurred with an optimal lighting and in the 71,4% of the falls, there wasn't anything that favoured them. The 66,7% of the falls didn't need health care after them and the 52,4% of the falls had no physical consequences. The main difficulties that arise in our elderly are run and roam.
Conclusions: The record of the falls has allowed to know the falls prevalence which corresponds to 41,17% in both sexes. It's usually a woman aged between 85 and 90 years old with a MMSE-35 of 31,4 points and a BMI of 26,6 kg/m2 on average. The falls occur inside the nursing home and showed a high fear of faIling. The footwear used was slippers without technical assistance to ambulate. Most of the falls took place in the morning with optimal lighting conditions and without any object that had favoured the fall. The majority of the falls didn't present immediate consequences after them and they didn't seek healthcare. Therefore, it can be assumed that the falls could be influenced by intrinsic factors, maybe the elderly comorbidity could influence. It's clear that the furniture of the institution is not a decisive factor, although the highest prevalence appears inside the nursing home, but it was found that the elderly spend most of their time inside the nursing home. We're facing a public health problem, for our country's health system doesn't have an accurate estimate referring to the falls prevalence in the elderly population.