Study of changes of clinical symptoms before incidents of falls in older adults with dementia: A comparison between inpatients and community-dwelling people using senior day-care services.

本研究的目的是利用重复测量的数据，阐明老年痴呆症住院患者和社区居住的老年痴呆症日托服务老年人跌倒前的智力功能和行为症状的变化。结果表明，住院患者跌倒前智力功能和行为症状均明显恶化。相比之下，社区居民中跌倒者的智力功能和行为症状都是稳定的，并且显著高于非跌倒者。这些发现表明，痴呆的某些特定类型的行为和心理症状可能与跌倒的发生有关。本研究为老年痴呆患者跌倒预测规则的概念框架提供了启示。

The aim of this study was to clarify changes of intellectual function and behavioral symptoms before falls, using data from repeated measurements, in older inpatients with dementia and community-dwelling older people using day-care service for dementia. The results indicated that both intellectual function and behavioral symptoms of fallers worsened significantly prior to falling in the inpatients. By contrast, both intellectual function and behavioral symptoms of fallers were stable in the community-dwelling people, and significantly higher than those of non-fallers. These findings indicated that some specific types of behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia may involve an occurrence of fall. This study leads implications for a conceptual framework for fall prediction rule in older adults with dementia.