TY - JOUR PY - 2015// TI - Combined resistance and balance-jumping exercise reduces older women's injurious falls and fractures: 5-year follow-up study JO - Age and ageing A1 - Karinkanta, Saija A1 - Kannus, Pekka A1 - Uusi-Rasi, Kirsti A1 - Heinonen, Ari A1 - Sievänen, Harri SP - 784 EP - 789 VL - 44 IS - 5 N2 - BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: previously, a randomised controlled exercise intervention study (RCT) showed that combined resistance and balance-jumping training (COMB) improved physical functioning and bone strength. The purpose of this follow-up study was to assess whether this exercise intervention had long-lasting effects in reducing injurious falls and fractures.

DESIGN: five-year health-care register-based follow-up study after a 1-year, four-arm RCT. SETTING: community-dwelling older women in Finland. SUBJECTS: one hundred and forty-five of the original 149 RCT participants; women aged 70-78 years at the beginning.

METHODS: participants' health-care visits were collected from computerised patient register. An injurious fall was defined as an event in which the subject contacted the health-care professionals or was taken to a hospital, due to a fall. The rate of injured fallers was assessed by Cox proportional hazards model (hazard ratio, HR), and the rate of injurious falls and fractures by Poisson regression (risk ratio, RR).

RESULTS: eighty-one injurious falls including 26 fractures occurred during the follow-up. The rate of injured fallers was 62% lower in COMB group compared with the controls (HR 0.38, 95% CI 0.17 to 0.85). In addition, COMB group had 51% less injurious falls (RR 0.49, 95% CI 0.25 to 0.98) and 74% less fractures (RR 0.26, 95% CI 0.07 to 0.97).

CONCLUSIONS: home-dwelling older women who participated in a 12-month intensive multi-component exercise training showed a reduced incidence for injurious falls during 5-year post-intervention period. Reduction in fractures was also evident. These long-term effects need to be confirmed in future studies.

Language: en

LA - en SN - 0002-0729 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ageing/afv064 ID - ref1 ER -