[Facilitators and barriers for older people to take part in fall prevention programs: A review of literature]. / Facteurs facilitant et entravant la participation des personnes âgées à des programmes de prévention des chutes : une revue de la littérature.

BACKGROUND: Falling is the leading cause of accidental death after 65. Fall prevention programs are effective, but they involve few seniors. This article reviewed the literature on facilitators and barriers to participate in such programs. METHODS: A literature review was conducted to identify documents in English, German and French published between 1990 and May 2012. Medline database, PsychInfo, Psychological and behavioral sciences and Francis were systematically searched, as were the bibliographies and some journals of public health, gerontology and social sciences. Of 462 documents found, 19 were selected and analyzed. RESULTS: Of the 19 articles selected, 12 were on qualitative studies and 7 on literature reviews. Among the barriers to participation in falls prevention programs, documents highlighted the perception of fall as an inevitable event, the inadequate timing of prevention intervention and material difficulties. Conversely, being referred to prevention intervention by a professional, being convinced by the social benefits of interventions and the adequacy of interventions to the needs of beneficiaries were factors facilitating the participation and compliance of the elderly. CONCLUSION: This literature review identified three major issues to consider when implementing sustainable and acceptable fall prevention programs: choice of the referring agent, and social representations of falling.

The impact of social relationships on the maintenance of independence in advanced old age: findings of a Swiss longitudinal study.

The impact of social relationships on the maintenance of independence over periods of 12-18 months in a group of 306 octogenarians is assessed in this study. The study is based on the results of the Swilsoo (Swiss Interdisciplinary Longitudinal Study on the Oldest Old). Participants (80-84 years old at baseline) were interviewed five times between 1994 and 1999. Independence was defined as the capacity to perform without assistance eight activities of daily living. We distinguished in our analyses kinship and friendship networks and evaluated social relationships with the help of a series of variables serving as indicators of network composition and contact frequency. Logistic regression models were used to identify the short-term effects of social relationships on independence, after controlling for sociodemographic and health-related variables; independence at a given wave of interviews was interpreted in the light of social factors measured at the previous wave. Our analyses indicate that the existence of a close friend has a significant impact on the maintenance of independence (OR=1.58, p<0.05), which is not the case with the other variables concerning network composition. Kinship contacts were also observed to have a positive impact on independence (OR=1.12, p<0.01).