Falls in the non-institutionalized elderly: a systematic literature review

This systematic literature review aimed to identify the occurrence of falls in elderly living in the community. On CAPES website, a search was conducted on the following databases: Academic Search (EBSCO), SciELO, and Science Direct (ELSEVIER). An additional search, on the EFDEPORTES website, was performed on the Lecturas Educación Física y Deportes database. Using the chosen descriptors, 247 articles published from 2000 to 2011 were identified. A total of 230 articles were excluded as they did not meet all the inclusion criteria. Hence, 17 articles were included in the study, 12 of which were cross-sectional studies, two prospective studies, two population studies, and one retrospective study. The whole sample involved in the studies consisted of 114,911 subjects with an average age of 70 years, distributed across seven countries: Brazil, United States, Spain, Italy, Nigeria, Turkey and China. The occurrence of falls ranged between 15.9% and 56.3%, with a median of 28.50%. Although presenting variation, the occurrence of falls in elderly living in the community is still high.