The influence of the multifactorial falls prevention programme on mortality

TL;DR

A study in Finland found that a falls prevention program may be linked to lower overall mortality in older adults, especially those aged 72 or older.

Contribution

The study is the first to investigate the relationship between a multifactorial falls prevention program and all-cause mortality using a population-based control group.

Findings

MFFP patients had a 19% lower all-cause mortality compared to controls.

Participants aged 72 or older had the strongest mortality benefit from the MFFP.

MFFP patients had a 2.7 times higher risk of accidental death but lower dementia-related mortality.

Abstract

Multifactorial falls prevention programmes (MFFPs) can prevent falls and fall-related injuries. We aimed to study MFFP patients’ mortality compared with their sex-, age- and residence-matched population-based controls.

This study is a Finnish single-centre retrospective register-based controlled cohort study of a total of 527 home-dwelling MFFP patients and their 3:1 age-, sex- and residence-matched population-based controls (n = 1581), who had not attended the MFFP.

During the follow-up, the cumulative mortality of all patients was 40.4, and of controls 39.1 %. Hazard ratio was 0.82 (95% confidence interval 0.68 to 0.99), p= 0.041. Case patients had a 2.7 times greater risk to die due to accidents, but they had a lower risk to die due to dementia, compared with the control group. The 72-years-old or older participants had a lower mortality rate than the controls during follow-up.

The MFFP seems to relate to a lower all-cause mortality when comparing MFFP patients with their age-, sex- and residence-matched controls. However, the MFFP did not seem to relate to a lower injury-related mortality. The relationship between the MFFP and lower all-cause mortality seemed to be strongest in the patients aged 72 years or older. Due to the study setting and population-based control group, it is difficult to draw solid conclusions and further studies are needed. A randomized controlled trial comparing the MFFP with standard care would give better insight on the effectiveness of a MFFP on mortality.

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