Full Description
Despite of the enormous efforts of researchers and clinicians to understand the pathophysiology of falls in older adults and establish preventive treatments, there is still a significant gap in our understanding and treating of this challenging syndrome, particularly when we focus in cognitively impaired older adults. Falls in older adults are a very common yet complex medical event, being the fifth leading cause of death and a main cause of insidious disability and nursing home placement in our world aging population. Importantly, falls in the cognitively impaired double the prevalence of the cognitively normal, affecting up of 60% of older adults with low cognition and increasing the risk of injuries. The past decade has witnessed an explosion of new knowledge in the role of cognitive processes into the falls mechanisms. This was also accompanied with clinical trials assessing the effect of improving cognition via pharmacological and non-pharmacologic approaches to prevent falls andrelated injuries. Unfortunately, this revolution in emerging interventions left a gap between clinician-scientists and researchers at academic centers where the new data had been generated and the practitioners who care for cognitively impaired patients with falls. Most advances are published in specialty journals of geriatric medicine, neurology, and rehabilitation.
The aim of this book is to reduce this gap and to provide practical tools for fall prevention in cognitively impaired populations. The proposed book is designed to present a comprehensive and state-of the-art update that covers the pathophysiology, epidemiology, and clinical presentation of falls in cognitively impaired older adults. We additionally aim to reduce the knowledge gap in the association between cognitive processes and falls for practitioners from a translational perspective: from research evidence to clinical approach. We will address gaps and areas of uncertainty but also we will provide practicalevidence-based guidelines for the assessment, approach, and treatment of falls in the cognitively impaired populations.
This book is a unique contribution to the field. Existing textbooks on fall prevention focus in global approaches and only tangentially address the cognitive component of falls and not purposely address special populations and/or settings as residential care and nursing homes. Due to the expected increase of proportion of older adults with cognitive and mobility impairments, this book is also valuable for the whole spectrum of the health care of the elderly. By including a transdisciplinary perspective from geriatric medicine, rehabilitation and physiotherapy medicine, cognitive neurology, and public health, this book will provide a practical and useful resource with wide applicability in falls assessment and prevention.
Contents
Falls as a manifestation of brain Failure (Gait and Cognition).- Dysmobility in aging and the role of cognition.- Epidemiology and Falls risk factors in cognitively impaired older adults.- Depression, Fear of falling, cognition and falls.- Consequences of falls in cognitively impaired people.- Dual-task gait, cognition and Falls.- Gait variability and Falls.- Assistive devices, falls, and cognitive aspects.- Imaging in "gait and cognition syndrome" and falls.- PD and Lewy Body Disease.- MCI: MMO and SMH.- AD and other dementias.- Approaches' in Hospitals and Nursing home settings.- Current gaps in Guidelines and Recommendations.- Physical exercises in cognitively vulnerable older adults and falls.- Cognitive training and falls reduction risk.- Vitamin D, falls and cognition.- Virtual Reality.- Cognitive enhancers.- Dual-task gait training.- Non-invasive brain stimulation.- Falls in cognitively impaired population: evidence, assumptions, and prospect research needed.
