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Falling (sensation)

About: Falling (sensation) is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1512 publications have been published within this topic receiving 11332 citations.


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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Subjects who expressed a fear of falling were found to exhibit significantly poorer performance in blindfolded spontaneous-sway tests and in eyes-open, one-leg stance tests, and the clinical scale was the only balance measure that showed a significant association with retrospective, self-reported falling history.
Abstract: A cross-sectional study was performed to investigate the association between fear of falling and postural performance in the elderly. One hundred ambulatory and independent volunteers (aged 62-96) were subjected to five types of balance tests: (a) spontaneous postural sway, (b) induced anterior-posterior sway, (c) induced medial-lateral sway, (d) one-leg stance, and (e) a clinical balance assessment scale. Pseudorandom platform motions were used in the induced-sway tests. The subjects were classified into both "faller"/"nonfaller" and "fear"/"no-fear" categories, to allow the influence of fear of falling and falling history to be separated in the analyses. Subjects who expressed a fear of falling were found to exhibit significantly poorer performance in blindfolded spontaneous-sway tests and in eyes-open, one-leg stance tests. The clinical scale was the only balance measure that showed a significant association with retrospective, self-reported falling history. We could not ascertain whether the fear of falling affected balance-test performance in an artifactual manner, or whether the fear and poorer performance were related to a true deterioration in postural control. Until this issue can be resolved, balance-test performance should be interpreted with caution when testing apprehensive individuals. Furthermore, studies of postural control and falling should allow for the potentially confounding influence of fear of falling.

608 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The strongest predictor of falling was prior falls in the preceding year, but even subjects without any prior falls had a considerable risk of sustaining future falls, and disease severity was not a good predictor of falls.
Abstract: Recurrent falls are a disabling feature of Parkinson's disease (PD). We have estimated the incidence of falling over a prospective 3 month follow-up from a large sample size, identified predictors for falling for PD patients repeated this analysis for patients without prior falls, and examined the risk of falling with increasing disease severity. We pooled six prospective studies of falling in PD (n = 473), and examined the predictive power of variables that were common to most studies. The 3-month fall rate was 46% (95% confidence interval: 38-54%). Interestingly, even among subjects without prior falls, this fall rate was 21% (12-35%). The best predictor of falling was two or more falls in the previous year (sensitivity 68%; specificity 81%). The risk of falling rose as UPDRS increased, to about a 60% chance of falling for UPDRS values 25 to 35, but remained at this level thereafter with a tendency to taper off towards later disease stages. These results confirm the high frequency of falling in PD, as almost 50% of patients fell during a short period of only 3 months. The strongest predictor of falling was prior falls in the preceding year, but even subjects without any prior falls had a considerable risk of sustaining future falls. Disease severity was not a good predictor of falls, possibly due to the complex U-shaped relation with falls. Early identification of the very first fall therefore remains difficult, and new prediction methods must be developed.

503 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The results indicated that fall detection using a triaxial accelerometer worn at the waist or head is efficient, even with quite simple threshold-based algorithms, with a sensitivity of 97-98% and specificity of 100%.

445 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Newall as discussed by the authors showed the mark made by drops of water and mercury falling on a smoked glass plate, the lampblack being swept away in concentric circles and radial striæ.
Abstract: My attention was first drawn to the subject of this paper last spring, by Mr. H. F. Newall, of the Rugby School Natural-History Society, who showed me the mark made by drops of water and mercury falling on a smoked glass plate, the lampblack being swept away in concentric circles and radial striæ. The patterns thus left were generally symmetrical and beautiful, and varied with the height of fall of the drop. I have since sought to investigate the cause of these appearances in Prof. Helmholtz’s laboratory in Berlin.

377 citations


Performance
Metrics
No. of papers in the topic in previous years
YearPapers
20222
202141
202046
201948
201848
201755