Falls in older people: assessing risk and prevention (NICE, June 2013)

Summary

This guideline by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) covers assessment of fall risk and interventions to prevent falls in people aged 65 years and over. It aims to reduce the risk and incidence of falls and the associated distress, pain, injury, loss of confidence, loss of independence and mortality.

Content

This guideline includes recommendations on:

• multifactorial risk assessment of older people who present for medical attention because of a fall, or report recurrent falls in the past year
• multifactorial interventions to prevent falls in older people who live in the community
• multifactorial risk assessment of older peoples’ risk of falling during a hospital stay
• multifactorial interventions to prevent falls in inpatients at risk of falling.