Investigation of Population-Based Fall Risk in Eye Diseases

It is well-known that older adults are at higher risk of falls and resulting injuries. Falls and their aftermath are one of the major public health concerns in aging societies. The aging-related risk of falls and fractures can be attributed to factors such as deteriorating muscle strength, balance, and vision. One way to further break down the vision factor can be by age-related eye diseases such as cataract, age-related macular degeneration (AMD), and glaucoma. Given their rapidly increasing prevalence, understanding the risk of falls by diagnosis of these eye diseases has clinical and societal importance. However, population-based risk assessment for falls and injuries in adults with these eye diseases has been lacking, as previous studies (cross-sectional or cohort) were either based on relatively small samples or based on self-reports. A recent large-scale population-based cohort study of fall risk by Tsang et al addressed the issue by investigating the medical records of more than 3 million individuals.
Source: JAMA Ophthalmology - Category: Opthalmology Source Type: research