falls

This report was released by the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging. The report notes that one in four Americans 65 and older falls each year, leading to lasting health and economic consequences. Falls are preventable and not necessarily a part of the normal aging process. The report also includes a list of recommendations from the committee.

This report expands upon the already established fact that falls are the leading cause of injury-related deaths among people 65 years and over. It reports on the increasing rate of deaths from falls, noting that they increased 31% from 2007 to 2016. In people aged 85 and over, this rate increased 3.9% per year. This report emphasizes the need for providers to take actionable steps towards reducing falls, including through targeted interventions such as prescribing balance exercises.

This report looks at methods of calculating the costs associated with falls in older adults. It presents two methods to calculate these costs: partial attributable fraction, which focuses on the details of payer type, and count applied to cost, which utilizes states’ own counts to assess lifetime costs. The goal of this report is to encourage states to use effective cost calculation to plan more targeted preventive measures going forward.