Analytical Review: Focus on Fall Screening Assessments

Background: Falls and their associated injuries profoundly impact health outcomes, functional independence, and health care expenses, particularly for the ever-increasing elderly population. This systematic search and review assessed the current evidence for the role of fall screening assessments.

Objective: To review the current evidence for fall risk screening assessments in community-dwelling (outpatient), inpatient medical and surgical wards, inpatient rehabilitation centers, and postrehabilitation outpatient settings.

Data Sources: MEDLINE and Embase (January 1980 to December 2012).

Study Selection: Prospective validation studies of acute medical or surgical inpatients, acute rehabilitation inpatients, outpatients who completed acute inpatient rehabilitation, or community-dwelling elderly.

Data Extraction: Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, receiver operating characteristics with area under the curve.

Results: We summarized key findings from 6 literature reviews. We then identified 31 articles: 12 studies in community setting, 13 in the acute medical inpatient or surgical inpatient setting, and 6 studies in the rehabilitation setting. Twenty-two studies not previously reviewed were included, and 9 studies previously reviewed were considered relevant and were included to allow comparison with data from the studies not previously reviewed.

Conclusion: We recommend consideration of 7 assessment tools to be used in conjunction with overall clinical evaluation to assess falls risk: the Timed Up and Go Test with a cutoff of >12.34 seconds and Functional Gait Assessment among community-dwelling elderly; St Thomas Risk Assessment Tool in medical inpatients <65 years old and surgical inpatients; Hendrich fall risk model II in medical inpatients; 10-Minute Walk Test in patients in poststroke rehabilitation; and Berg Balance Scale or the Step Test in patients in poststroke rehabilitation who had fallen during their inpatient stay.