Carmen-Lucia Curcio, Yan Yan Wu, Afshin Vafaei, Juliana Fernandez de Souza Barbosa, Ricardo Guerra, Jack Guralnik, Fernando Gomez
Background: We determine the best combination of factors for predicting the risk of developing fear of falling (FOF) in older people via Classification Regression Tree (CaRT) analysis. Methods: Community-dwelling older adults living in Canada, Albania, Brazil, and Colombia were from International Mobility in Aging Study (IMIAS). In 2014, 1,725 participants (aged 65-74) were assessed. With a retention rate of 81%, in 2016, 1,409 individuals were reassessed. Risk factors for FOF were entered into the CaRT: age, sex, education, self-rated health, comorbidity, medication, visual impairment, frailty, cognitive deficit, depression, fall history, Short Physical Performance Battery (SPPB), walking aid use, and mobility disability measured by the Nagi questionnaire...
February 8, 2019: Journals of Gerontology. Series A, Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences