Giving seniors living in nursing homes daily doses of vitamin D could be a good way to help reduce falls, new research finds.
The review, by the Cochrane Library, notes that older people living in nursing homes or in hospital are much more likely to suffer a fall than those living at home.
In many of these cases, the falls result in head injuries and fractures. Hip fractures alone are 10 times more likely to occur in nursing facilities than at home, and often lead to a quick decline and death among seniors.
Many nursing homes use "multifactorial interventions," or fall-prevention programs, which usually combine exercise, medication, and environmental changes, such as elimiating tripping hazards, to reduce the risk of falls.
The Cochrane researchers wanted to know how much an effect giving vitamin D to residents would affect rates of falling. They reviewed five studies in which 5,095 older people in nursing homes were given vitamin D supplements.
Four of the studies looked specifically at fall rates. Those studies showed that those receiving the vitamin D saw an average of a 28 per cent reduction in falls among those given the vitamin. The final study found that the benefits were greatest in seniors with low levels of the nutrient.
"The positive result in reducing the rate of falls ... suggests that vitamin D supplementation in people living in nursing homes is effective," the review reads.
Vitamin D, sometimes called the sunshine vitamin, is not just important for maintaining bone strength; it is also thought to help maintain muscle mass in older people. That can be crucial for seniors in care, since they are more likely to spend much of their days in bed or in a wheelchair, which contributes to strength loss.
Deficiencies in the vitamin are common in seniors, especially among those who stay indoors a lot, as most seniors in nursing homes and hospitals do.
The Cochrane reviewers also looked at other ways to prevent falls in nursing homes. They reviewed 41 studies involving more than 25,000 seniors; 30 studies were conducted in nursing care facilities and 11 in hospitals.
They found that the fall-prevention programs reduced the risk of falls in hospitals, but interestingly, in nursing homes, the effects were not significant. The only exception was when the programs were implemented by multidisciplinary teams, they said.
"We have more confidence in recommending multifactorial programs in nursing care facilities that are delivered by a multidisciplinary team," the researchers wrote.
They weren't sure why using the teams would make a difference but said it may be related to the type and intensity of exercise the seniors received, or simply in the way the studies themselves were conducted.
"In our review, we saw limited evidence that these combined interventions work, but we could more confidently recommend them if they were delivered by a multidisciplinary team," said lead researcher Ian Cameron, who is based at Sydney Medical School at the University of Sydney in Ryde, Australia.
His team added that more research is needed to determine which aspects of fall-prevention program are most effective.
"Currently, there's no one component of any of these programmes that stands out as more important than any other," they wrote, "...and we're also missing data on whether increased supervision or new technologies such as alarm systems are of any benefit."
