Older People Living Alone: A Predictive Model of Fall Risk.

Falls in older people are a result of a combination of multiple risk factors. There are few studies involving predictive models in a community context. The aim of this study was to determine the validation of a new model for predicting fall risk in older adults (65+) living alone in community dwellings (n = 186; n = 117) with a test-retest reliability study. We consider in the predictive model the significant factors emerged from the bivariate analysis: age, zone, social community resources, physical exercise, self-perception of health, difficulty to keep standing, difficulty to sit and get up from a chair, strain to see, use of technical devices, hypertension and number of medications. The final model explained 28.5% of the risk of falling in older adults living alone in community dwellings. The AUC = 0.660 (se = 0.065, IC 95% 0.533-0.787, p = 0.017). The predictive model developed revealed a satisfactory discriminatory performance of the model and can contribute to clinical practice, with respect to the evaluation of risk of falling in this frailty group and preventing falls.

Caídas en personas mayores que viven solas: el papel de los factores individuales, sociales y medioambientales / Falls in older persons living alone: The role of individual, social and environmental factors

Objetivo: Identificar la prevalencia y los factores de riesgo de las caídas de las personas mayores (+ 65 años) que viven solas. Método: Se trata de un estudio descriptivo y transversal que incluyó a 186 participantes, de 65 años o más, que vivían solos en una vivienda comunitaria. Resultados: La prevalencia de caídas fue del 80,1% (IC del 95%: 74,1-85,8). Considerando los últimos 3 meses, la prevalencia de caídas se redujo al 22,2% (IC del 95%: 17,5-29,9) y el número de caídas reportadas fue de 2,4 (desviación estándar = 2,1). La mayoría de las caídas fueron accidentales (n = 74, 59,7%), seguidas de los mareos (n = 15, 12,1%), y casi el 50% se produjo por la mañana (n = 53, 45,3%). Considerando el lugar donde se produjeron las caídas, 70 (57,4%) se produjeron en casa (36,1% en el interior y 21,3% en el exterior), 41 en la calle (33,6%) y solo 11 (9,0%) en un lugar público (4,1% en el interior y 4,9% en el exterior). Tras la caída, el 30,9% de los participantes modificó su vida cotidiana como resultado de la misma. Conclusiones: Las caídas entre los adultos mayores son un problema multifactorial que requiere intervenciones integradas y multiprofesionales. La edad avanzada, el hecho de vivir solo en una zona urbana con recursos insuficientes, la reducción de la actividad física y la mala percepción de uno mismo son factores asociados a un mayor riesgo de caídas. Del mismo modo, las personas mayores que tienen dificultades para permanecer de pie, sentarse y levantarse de una silla, además de ser hipertensas y tomar un elevado número de medicamentos, están asociadas a un alto riesgo de caídas. Las investigaciones futuras deberán desarrollar y enfatizar más estudios nacionales para confirmar estos resultados.(AU)

Objective: To identify the prevalence and the risk factors of falling in older people (65+) living alone. Method: This is a descriptive and transversal study which included 186 participants, aged 65 + living alone in community-dwelling. Results: The prevalence of falls was 80.1% (95% CI 74.1-85.8). Considering the last 3 months, the prevalence of falls reduced to 22.2% (95% CI 17.5-29.9) and the number of falls reported was 2.4 (SD=2.1). Most falls were accidental (n=74, 59.7%), followed by dizziness (n=15, 12.1%) and almost 50% occurred in the morning (n=53, 45.3%). Considering the local where the falls occurred, 70 (57.4%) were at home (36.1% inside and 21.3% outside), 41 on the street (33.6%) and only 11 (9.0%) in a public place (4.1% inside and 4.9% outside). After the fall, 30.9% of the participants changed daily life after an event. Conclusions: Falls among older adults is a multifactorial problem that requires integrated and multiprofessional interventions. Older age, living alone in an urban area, with insufficient resources, reduced physical activity and a poor self-perception are factors associated with a higher risk of falling. Similarly, older people who have difficulty standing, sitting and rising from a chair, as well as being hypertensive and taking a high number of medications are associated with a high risk of falling. Future research should develop and emphasize more national studies to confirm these results.(AU)

Falls in older persons living alone: the role of individual, social and environmental factors.

OBJECTIVE: To identify the prevalence and the risk factors of falling in older people (65+) living alone. METHOD: This is a descriptive and transversal study which included 186 participants, aged 65+ living alone in community-dwelling. RESULTS: The prevalence of falls was 80.1% (95% CI 74.1-85.8). Considering the last 3 months, the prevalence of falls reduced to 22.2% (95% CI 17.5-29.9) and the number of falls reported was 2.4 (sd = 2.1). Most falls were accidental (n = 74, 59.7%), followed by dizziness (n = 15, 12.1%) and almost 50% occurred in the morning (n = 53, 45.3%). Considering the local where the falls occurred, 70 (57.4%) were at home (36.1% inside and 21.3% outside), 41 on the street (33.6%) and only 11 (9.0%) in a public place (4.1% inside and 4.9% outside). After the fall, 30.9% of the participants changed daily life after an event. CONCLUSIONS: Falls among older adults is a multifactorial problem that requires integrated and multiprofessional interventions. Older age, living alone in an urban area, with insufficient resources, reduced physical activity and a poor self-perception are factors associated with a higher risk of falling. Similarly, older people who have difficulty standing, sitting and rising from a chair, as well as being hypertensive and taking a high number of medications are associated with a high risk of falling. Future research should develop and emphasize more national studies to confirm these results.

Off-Line Evaluation of Mobile-Centric Indoor Positioning Systems: The Experiences from the 2017 IPIN Competition.

The development of indoor positioning solutions using smartphones is a growing activity with an enormous potential for everyday life and professional applications. The research activities on this topic concentrate on the development of new positioning solutions that are tested in specific environments under their own evaluation metrics. To explore the real positioning quality of smartphone-based solutions and their capabilities for seamlessly adapting to different scenarios, it is needed to find fair evaluation frameworks. The design of competitions using extensive pre-recorded datasets is a valid way to generate open data for comparing the different solutions created by research teams. In this paper, we discuss the details of the 2017 IPIN indoor localization competition, the different datasets created, the teams participating in the event, and the results they obtained. We compare these results with other competition-based approaches (Microsoft and Perf-loc) and on-line evaluation web sites. The lessons learned by organising these competitions and the benefits for the community are addressed along the paper. Our analysis paves the way for future developments on the standardization of evaluations and for creating a widely-adopted benchmark strategy for researchers and companies in the field.

The Smartphone-Based Offline Indoor Location Competition at IPIN 2016: Analysis and Future Work.

This paper presents the analysis and discussion of the off-site localization competition track, which took place during the Seventh International Conference on Indoor Positioning and Indoor Navigation (IPIN 2016). Five international teams proposed different strategies for smartphone-based indoor positioning using the same reference data. The competitors were provided with several smartphone-collected signal datasets, some of which were used for training (known trajectories), and others for evaluating (unknown trajectories). The competition permits a coherent evaluation method of the competitors' estimations, where inside information to fine-tune their systems is not offered, and thus provides, in our opinion, a good starting point to introduce a fair comparison between the smartphone-based systems found in the literature. The methodology, experience, feedback from competitors and future working lines are described.