Citation

Muir SW, Berg K, Chesworth B, Speechley M. Phys. Ther. 2008; 88(4): 449-459.

Affiliation

Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Western Ontario, Kresge Building, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 5C1.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2008, American Physical Therapy Association)

DOI

10.2522/ptj.20070251

PMID

18218822

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Falls are a significant public health concern for older adults; early identification of people at high risk for falling facilitates the provision of rehabilitation treatment to reduce future fall risk. The objective of this prospective cohort study was to examine the predictive validity of the Berg Balance Scale (BBS) for 3 types of outcomes-any fall (>/=1 fall), multiple falls (>/=2 falls), and injurious falls-by use of sensitivity, specificity, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves, area under the curve, and likelihood ratios. SUBJECTS AND METHODS:/b>A sample of 210 community-dwelling older adults received a comprehensive geriatric assessment at baseline, which included the BBS to measure balance. Data on prospective falls were collected monthly for a year. The predictive validity of the BBS for the identification of future fall risk was evaluated. RESULTS: /b>The BBS had good discriminative ability to predict multiple falls when ROC analysis was used. However, the use of the BBS as a dichotomous scale, with a threshold ofThe use of the BBS as a dichotomous scale to identify people at high risk for falling should be discouraged because it fails to identify the majority of such people. The predictive validity of this scale for multiple falls is superior to that for other types of falls, and the use of likelihood ratios preserves the gradient of risk across the whole range of scores.

Language: en