Cited by 59Balance, Gait, and Falls PreventionCardiovascular Syncope and Autonomic DisordersVestibular and auditory disorders

Drop attacks in older adults: systematic assessment has a high diagnostic yield

Open access
Parry, Steve W., Kenny, Rose Anne·2005·Journal of the American Geriatrics Society

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the causes of recurrent drop attacks in older patients with a comprehensive battery of investigations in the largest series reported to date. DESIGN: Observational with mean followup of 18 months. SETTING: Inner city emergency department and tertiary facility in Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom. PARTICIPANTS: Ninety-three consecutive patients aged 55 and older with three or more drop attacks in the 6 months before evaluation. METHODS: Subjects underwent a comprehensive diagnostic evaluation, with particular attention to traditional (e.g., gait and balance abnormalities, medications) and more recently identified (e.g., carotid sinus hypersensitivity) risk factors for drop attacks. RESULTS: Subjects tended to be older (mean age+/-standard deviation 77.4+/-9.0) and female (70; 75%) and to have a mean of 10.4 drop attacks before evaluation. Fifty-three (57%) had suffered soft tissue injuries needing medical attention and 32 (34%) fractures secondary to drop attacks. An attributable diagnosis was achieved in all but nine subjects (90%). Cardiovascular diagnoses (49; 53%) were most commonly implicated, with neurological (27; 29%) and gait and balance abnormalities (17; 18%) and drug-related causes (11; 12%) providing the majority of the remaining diagnoses. CONCLUSION: Drop attacks in older subjects are associated with high levels of morbidity and healthcare resource utilization. Attributable diagnoses are achievable in the majority of cases with a systematic investigative approach. The high diagnostic yield more than justifies the approach described.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1111/j.1532-5415.2005.53013.x

Cites

24 of 24 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

We couldn’t retrieve this paper’s full text, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Syncopal events may be unwitnessed in over half of older patients, meaning that collateral histories may not be available, which makes discrimination between falls and syncope challenging.

    “Syncopal events may be unwitnessed in over half of older patients meaning that collateral histories may not available, which makes discrimination between falls and syncope challenging. 387”

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Parry, S. W., & Kenny, R. A.
Affiliations
Royal Victoria Infirmary (GB)
Venue
Journal of the American Geriatrics Society
Publisher
Wiley
Published
2004-12-22
Volume
53
Issue
1
Pages
74-78
ISSN
  • 0002-8614 (ISSN-L)
  • 1532-5415
OpenAlex
W1577700234
Cited by
59
References
24
Citations by year
2026: 1 · 2025: 2 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 3 · 2018: 5 · 2017: 2 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 3 · 2014: 2 · 2013: 4 · 2012: 3
FWCI
5.95
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Newcastle University ePrints (Newcastle Univesity)
Funders
British Heart Foundation
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Health Professions › Physical Therapy, Sports Therapy and Rehabilitation › Balance, Gait, and Falls Prevention
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Surgery › Cardiovascular Syncope and Autonomic Disorders
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Neurology › Vestibular and auditory disorders
Keywords
drop attacks, falls in older adults, recurrent falls, diagnostic yield, carotid sinus hypersensitivity, drug-induced falls, fracture, soft tissue injury, healthcare resource utilization
MeSH terms
Age Factors, Aged, Emergency Service, Hospital, Female, Follow-Up Studies, United Kingdom, Health Services, Humans, Male, Morbidity, Physical Examination, Risk Factors, Syncope

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review