Frailty as a Risk of falls among Obese Elderly women

Abstract

This study was conducted to assess frailty as a risk of falls in obese elderly females. Our study was a case control study and enrolled 140 elderly females recruited from attendants of outpatient clinics and inpatient wards in Ain Shams University Hospitals. All participants were subjected to: detailed personal history, complete physical examination, assessment frailty by FRIED criteria, assessment of falls by timed up and go test and FRAT, weight and height were measured, BMI (kg/m2) was calculated and waist circumference were measured. Our study revealed that risk of falls was 80% in frail obese cases compared to 20% of obese non frail cases. Also 71.4% of frail non-obese cases have positive risk of falls and only 28.6% of non frail non-obese cases have positive risk of falls. In addition 60% of obese cases were frail, while 51.4% of non-obese group were frail and risk of falls by TUGT was highly significant in obese group than non-obese group.