Orthopaedic complications of falls in elderly patients a brief review

Falls are frequent and often cause morbidity, mortality, and disability that require regular nursing. Most of these falls are associated with one or more identifiable risk factors, such as weakness, unsteady gait, confusion and medication use. Our objective was to review existing literature regarding prevention, orthopaedic complications, and risk factor of falls in the elderly. Methods: A total of 14 relevant literature were reviewed regarding orthopaedic complications of fall in elderly patients. The data collection for eligible articles were conducted from 1988-2015. Different database and manual search methods were used to find the topic-related articles. Results: Falls in elderly occurs due to a combination of multiple risk factors, such as imbalance, degenerative diseases, porotic bone, and metabolic disturbances. Though in the orthopaedic field, falls will most often result in injury such as femoral neck and proximal humerus fractures, all other parts of the body may also be affected due to various mechanisms of injury. As a disabling phenomenon, fractures due to falls in elderly may then proceed to series of complications, from early to late complications, from local (such as nonunion, muscle atrophy, disuse osteoporosis, etc) to systemic complications (such as pressure sores, pneumonia, ulcers, urinary tract infection, ileus, etc). Therefore, prevention will play a critical role in this particular situation. Conclusion: Data from the most recent studies suggest the apparent effectiveness of several interventions in preventing falls, including fall risk assessments tied to interventions, exercise, environmental inspection and modification, and combined interventions.