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By Amy Norton
NEW YORK, Mar 12 (Reuters Health) - The lingering health problems that can plague older people after an accident put them at nearly three times greater risk for more injuries, results of a study show.
Researchers say this pattern highlights the need for physical rehabilitation among older people--a population that is often not targeted for intensive physical therapy.
While it is known that elderly people who get hurt in falls and other accidents are at risk for further injuries, "this study tells us why," researcher Dr. Gerald McGwin Jr. told Reuters Health.
McGwin and colleagues studied 100 people aged 70 years and older who had already sustained injuries that needed hospital care, and 400 elderly who had not been injured. Over 6 years, the investigators monitored to see which of the participants were hospitalized either again or for the first time for injuries.
The people who had already been injured were 3.25 times more likely to be hospitalized during the study than those who had never been injured, the report indicates.
Among those who had previously been injured, the greatest risk of recurrent injuries was among patients whose original injuries left them less able to perform daily activities such as walking, dressing and bathing, McGwin and his colleagues at the University of Alabama at Birmingham found.
The findings "clearly indicate that a sub-group of the trauma patient population may benefit from interventions to reduce injury recurrence," the authors write in the February issue of the Archives of Surgery. Reducing the impact of injuries on people's ability to perform everyday tasks should help reduce recurrent injuries, they add.
There is growing consensus that the best way to prevent falls--the top cause of injuries among the elderly--is a combination of improving physical fitness, limiting drugs that make patients vulnerable to falls and clearing the home of safety risks, McGwin told Reuters Health.
It is also important for elderly patients to discuss injury prevention with their doctors, the researcher said.
SOURCE: Archives of Surgery 2001;136:197-203.
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