The link between decline and fall

28 November 2006

UNSW has been awarded one of eight National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) grants targeting dementia.

Associate Professor Stephen Lord, who is based at the Prince of Wales Medical Research Institute, has won a three-year grant of more than half a million dollars to investigate how to intervene to prevent falls and fractures in cognitively impaired older people.

Previous research shows that while it is possible to prevent falls in cognitively intact older people, there has been no success for people with cognitive decline.

Cognitive impairment has long been known to be a major risk factor for falls and fractures.

This research will be different because it will incorporate tests assessing performance of different regions of the brain with medical and medication history and measures of gait and balance.

“An MRI scan will allow us to determine whether risk of falling relates to any specific pathology in different parts of the brain,” said Professor Lord.

“It is likely that previous falls prevention trials involving people with cognitive impairment were unsuccessful because they did not directly assess mechanisms for falls in this group,” he said.

For further information about the research and grant, go to the NHRMC website