Falls are a major cause of injuries and deaths in older adults in the United States.
One of the most serious results of falling is a head injury, especially a traumatic brain injury.
In 2021, over 36,000 older adults in the U.S. died because of falls. In Florida alone, nearly 4,000 older people lost their lives due to falls that year.
Even though falls are a well-known danger for older people, the connection between alcohol use and fall-related injuries has not been studied very much. A recent study from Florida Atlantic University and other research partners has taken a closer look at this issue.
This study was one of the first to look at how drinking alcohol may be linked to serious head injuries in older adults who fall. It focused on a condition called intracranial hemorrhage, or ICH, which is bleeding in the brain.
The researchers looked at data from two busy trauma centers in Palm Beach County, Florida. These hospitals see many emergency cases, which made them good places to study older patients with head injuries from falls.
The researchers studied more than 3,100 people aged 65 and older who had fallen and hurt their heads. All of these patients had a CT scan to check for brain injuries. About 13.5% of them were found to have bleeding in the brain. Around 18% of the people in the study had used alcohol before the fall, and 6% said they drank alcohol every day.
The researchers found that people who drank alcohol were more likely to have serious brain injuries. Even people who only drank occasionally had double the chance of having brain bleeding compared to those who didn’t drink. For daily drinkers, the risk was even higher. They had a 150% increase in the chance of bleeding in the brain. The more often someone drank, the higher their risk.
People who drank alcohol were usually a bit younger, around 78 years old, while those who didn’t drink were about 83 years old. Still, the risk of head injury was much higher in the alcohol group. Bleeding in the brain happened in 22% of alcohol users, but only 12% of non-users.
Alcohol can raise the risk of falls by making people less steady on their feet and affecting their thinking and reaction time. As people get older, their bodies don’t handle alcohol as well as they used to. This means alcohol stays in the system longer and has stronger effects.
Current fall prevention programs don’t talk much about the role of alcohol. The study’s lead author, Dr. Richard Shih, says it’s time to change that. He believes that checking older adults for alcohol use and helping them cut back could be an important step in preventing serious injuries.
This study helps us understand that alcohol is a real and changeable risk factor for falls in older adults. With better awareness and changes in how we prevent falls, we can help protect older people from dangerous injuries like brain bleeding.
If you care about alcoholism, please read studies that your age may decide whether alcohol is good or bad for you, and people over 40 need to prevent dangerous alcohol/drug interactions.
For more information about alcohol, please see recent studies about moderate alcohol drinking linked to high blood pressure, and results showing this drug combo shows promise for treating alcoholism.
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