INFAD (Nov 2019)

Relationship between functoinal mobility and polymedication for the risk of falls in the elderly

  • Ana Filipa Almeida,
  • Vitor Pinheira,
  • Nuno Cordeiro

DOI
https://doi.org/10.17060/ijodaep.2019.n2.v2.1917
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 3, no. 2
pp. 265 – 276

Abstract

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Objective: Find the correlation between the functional mobility impairments, that are contributive to the fall risk, with the polypharmacy e the consumption of psychotropic drugs. Materials and methods: It is a corretional non-experimental study and it has a convenience sample of 37 individuals with ages between 55 and 96 years old, from both genders. The study took place on the academic year of 2018/2019, in diverse institutions in Northern and Central Portugal. Functional mobility data was collected with the Timed Up and Go Test (TUG) and was also gathered information concerning the participant’s medication. For data processing and statistical analysis Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) Windows 10 was used. Results: The sample shows moderate correlations between age and the TUG score (r=0,6), the number of drugs taken (r=0,59) and the Medication Fall Risk Score (MFRS) (r=0,42). The fall ocurrence in the last 6 months is reasonbly related with the number of drugs taken (r=0,44), with the MFRS (r=0,44) and with the consumption level 3 medication, on the MFRS (r=0,39). The number of drugs taken a day has high correlation with the MSFR (r=0,86) and moderate correlation with the level 3 medication (r=0,61). The MFSR has too high correlation with the number of level 3 drugs taken (r=0,76). It turn out age correlated with the number of falls in the past 6 months and the number of level 3 drugs had no statistically significance. The same was verified in the correlation between TUG scores and the number of falls in the past 6 months, the number of drugs taken a day, the MSFR and the number of level 3 medication. No statistically significative differences were found between individuals with and without fall risk for any variable. Conclusion: From the obtained results, we may conclude that polypharmacy and psychotropic drugs have direct influence on the fall occurrence, however they did not reveal relation with higher TUG scores and with the presence of fall risk.

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