Efficacy of simple home-based technologies combined with a monitoring assistive center in decreasing falls in a frail elderly population (results of the Esoppe study).

BACKGROUND Increasing age often implies increasing frailty, and the oldest old are often described as a frail group with a high risk of developing functional impairments and multi-morbidities like falls at home, which often result in dependence in daily activities. This preliminary study evaluate the efficacy of light path coupled with tele-assistance service for preventing unintentional falls at home in a frail elderly population. METHODS Study design is a longitudinal prospective cohort study from 1st July 2009 to 30 June 2010. The program included 194 adults aged 65 and over living at home and registered on a list of frail elderly people. Participants were uniformly asked about their history of falls during the year prior to their most recent health examination. The recall period was one year. RESULTS We observed that 77 (40.5%) elderly fell at home, 29 (30.9%) in the exposed group and 48 (50.0%) in the unexposed group. The use of light path coupled with tele-assistance was significantly associated with the reduction in falls at home, odd ratio=0.33 95%CI [0.17-0.65] p value=0.0012. There was also a greater reduction in post-fall hospitalization rate among exposed group with odd ratio=0.30 95%CI [0.12-0.74] p value=0.0091. CONCLUSIONS This preliminary study showed that the use of light path coupled with tele-assistance service significantly reduced the incidence of unintentional falling at home among frail elderly population. This result should be confirmed by a randomized trial.