Falling short: Recruiting elderly individuals for a fall study.

This article addresses recruitment and sampling methodology issues and draws attention to the gap in best practices left by previous literature. Authors conducted a systematic review of methods used to recruit elderly individuals for "activity-related fall studies" that assessed subjects' movement and mobility, and investigated incidence of real falls. The review highlighted effective recruitment strategies and identified challenges across several settings. Literature review findings were compared to recruitment challenges encountered in an activity-related fall study from 2011, focused on enrolling a target group of older adults with both high risk of falling and the requisite cognitive capacity to adhere to activity protocols. The analysis yielded several recommendations for improving recruitment of older adults for activity-related fall studies, including: recruiting from community-based settings; utilizing short-term activity protocols to promote involvement among institutionalized elderly; establishing eligibility criteria that may include those with lower cognitive functioning, mobility restrictions, and co-morbidities; employing direct-mail recruitment methods; and utilizing intermediaries to recruit institutionalized elderly.
PMID: 23274452 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

Source: Ageing Research Reviews - December 27, 2012 Category: Genetics & Stem Cells Authors: Wilding MJ, Seegert L, Rupcic S, Griffin M, Kachnowski S, Parasuraman S Tags: Ageing Res Rev Source Type: research