Citation

Niihata K, Fukuma S, Hiratsuka Y, Ono K, Yamada M, Sekiguchi M, Otani K, Kikuchi S, Konno S, Fukuhara S. PLoS One 2018; 13(4): e0195806.

Affiliation

Department of Healthcare Epidemiology, School of Public Health in the Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Public Library of Science)

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0195806

PMID

29689064

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Falls and fall-related fractures are a major public health problem among the older adults. Although objective measures of poor vision have been reported to be associated with falls, the association of self-reported visual function and vision-specific quality of life (QOL) with falls has been inconsistent across several studies. We investigated the association of self-reported visual function and vision specific QOL with falls in community-dwelling older adults.

METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional analysis using the baseline data from participants of the Locomotive Syndrome and Health Outcome in Aizu Cohort Study (LOHAS), which is an ongoing population-based cohort study to evaluate the association of physical dysfunction with the clinical outcomes in community-dwelling people. In the present study, the participants aged over 65 years in 2010 were eligible. The exposure variable was the composite score of the VFQ-J11, which was newly developed using item response theory to evaluate vision specific QOL, and the self-reported outcomes were any fall and frequent falls (≥2) over a 1-month period. We estimated odds ratios using separate logistic regression models adjusted for relevant confounding factors.

RESULTS: Among 1624 participants, the median (interquartile range) composite score of VFQ-J11 was 86.8 (76.0-95.9). Any fall and frequent falls were reported by 13.9% and 5.4% of participants, respectively. The composite score of the VFQ-J11 was significantly associated with both frequent falls (adjusted ORs per 10 points, 0.80; 95% CI, 0.68-0.93) and any fall (adjusted ORs per 10 points, 0.84; 95% CI, 0.76-0.94).

CONCLUSIONS: We found that the composite score of the VFQ-J11 was associated with falls in community-dwelling older adults. Detecting individuals with visual impairments associated with falls using the VFQ-J11 and improvement in the score by interventions could prevent falls. We may consider adding self-reported visual function and vision-specific QOL to conventional risk factors for fall among older adults.

Language: en