{"id":6453,"date":"2020-12-11T11:13:50","date_gmt":"2020-12-11T11:13:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/?p=6453"},"modified":"2020-12-11T11:13:51","modified_gmt":"2020-12-11T11:13:51","slug":"loneliness-and-social-isolation-associated-with-higher-fall-risk-in-elderly-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/loneliness-and-social-isolation-associated-with-higher-fall-risk-in-elderly-people\/","title":{"rendered":"Loneliness and social isolation associated with higher fall risk in elderly people"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Elderly people living alone or without social contact may be more likely to fall in their homes or be admitted to hospital for a fall, suggests a study published in\u00a0<\/strong><em><strong>Scientific Reports<\/strong><\/em><strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Daisy Fancourt and colleagues studied data from a total of 13,061 participants aged 60 and over, collected between 2002-2017 as part of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) survey. They analysed self-reported data on falls, and where available, records of hospital admissions related to a fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Falls are a major public health issue among older people, and over 50% of participants reported experiencing a fall within the study period, while 9% had a hospital admission related to a fall. Living alone and having little social contact, which were used as measures of social isolation, were associated with a higher risk of both self-reported falls and falls requiring hospital admittance in older adults. After accounting for socioeconomic and lifestyle factors, individuals living alone showed an 18% higher risk of reporting a fall than those living with a friend or relative. Individuals who had the least social contact were 24% more likely to report a fall and 36-42% more likely to be admitted to hospital for a fall than those with the most social contact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The authors suggest that living with another person and frequent social contact may reduce the risk of falling by alleviating stress and allowing risks to be identified. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Further studies should explore whether lockdown and social distancing measures as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic may have increased the incidence of falls in older individuals, according to the authors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The authors suggest that living with another person and frequent social contact may reduce the risk of falling by alleviating stress and allowing risks to be identified. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6046,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1140,2348,1882],"class_list":["post-6453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsmakers","tag-senior-care","tag-senior-health","tag-seniors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6453"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6454,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6453\/revisions\/6454"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}