Abstract

Introduction:It was noticed the increasing of the risk to fall in elderly. Prevention program could decrease this prevalence.

Objective: To identify the prevalence for falls in elderly active people and to verify the effectiveness of an intervention program to decrease the risk for falls.

Method: This is a cross-sectional, prospective, and quantitative study. Sixty volunteers, aged ranged 60 to 85 years (70.07±7.02) from the community of a small city in northeast of Brazil wereselected. The Dynamic Gait Index (DGI)Brazilian brief versionand Timed Up and Go (TUG) was used to identify the risk for falls and the Cawthorne and Cooksey protocol was the baseline to prevention program.

Results:TheDGI showed that 35.8% presented risk for falls and at the ending period, these scores decreased to 10.25% (p value = 8X10-5). The initial scores to TUG showed that 76.3% of the sample had a risk of falls, and 23.6% after the program(p Value =6x10-7).

Conclusion:It was found that the risk for falls was higher in older elders and the prevention program reduced the risk of falls and improved gait and dynamic balance in this sample.

Keywords

aged, health of the elderly, postural balance, questionnaires, accidental falls,quality of life, elderly people, vestibular rehabilitation, decrease fallings