Falls Prevention for Older People in Primary Care Settings

Frontiers has already compiled a collection of articles about falls prevention in 2016 entitled "Evidence-based Practices to Reduce Falls and Fall-related Injuries Among Older Adults", but this topic would be focused on primary care settings in rural and urban areas.

Falls and fall-related injuries among older adults continue to be a major public health concern internationally, due to the prevalence of falls and the serious consequences that many older people experience and the costs to health services. Despite effective interventions being discovered, the rates of hospitalization for falls continue to rise. Prevention in primary care settings may help to prevent hospital admissions.

Effective strategies are needed in primary care services to ensure that older people who are seen by any health professional are asked about falling and can be referred to appropriate prevention services, long before the risk is severely elevated, or before a serious fall has occurred. This means educating all the relevant health professionals working in community and primary health settings so they can understand their role and the roles of others, and work together to reduce falls.

This Research Topic will include articles to describe interventions and programs that have been evaluated in the primary health or community setting to prevent falls and related risk factors.