Soft tissue injury resulting from falling predicts a future major falling injury in the home dwelling elderly

Community dwelling elderly people with a history of falls are likely to sustain subsequent falls and injurious falls.1Elderly people who have had a previous fall with a fracture are at an increased risk of major injurious fall.2 However, the recurrence of major fall injuries other than fractures remains unknown. We conducted a prospective population-based cohort study among home dwelling elderly people to examine the risk of major injurious falls associated with a previous fall with serious soft tissue injury. We recorded all falls according to ICD-9, 9th revision, (E880A-E899A) among all home living persons aged 70 years or over and resident in five rural municipalities in northern Finland on 1 January 1991. Fall recording from 1 January 1991 until 31 December 1996, was based on telephone contacts every third month and annual …