Older women who report recent falls are more likely to fracture a bone in the next five years. Injurious falls are linked to the most severe risk, a new study finds.
Investigators questioned more than 8,700 postmenopausal women about the number of falls they’d experienced in the past 12 months. Nearly one in five reported falls. At a five-year follow-up, the odds of fracture were found to be 41% greater fracture among those women when compared to their peers who did not report initial falls, wrote the researchers, from the University of Eastern Finland.
The type of fall also influenced risk predictions. Slip falls (a problem exacerbated by the Finnish climate, the researchers said) were tied to greater odds of subsequent fracture than other fall types. And women who reported injurious falls had a 64% higher risk of fractures other than major osteoporotic fractures.
Data was culled from the Kuopio Osteoporosis Risk Factor and Prevention Study. The study was published online in the journal Osteoporosis International.
