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player ready...You might not want to tell an aged woman how old she looks, but that fact might be able to tell you something about her risk of falls or an earlier death.
Scientists in Malmo, Sweden, had observers rate how elderly more than 1,000 75-year-old women seemed. Then they divided the women into three groups according to ratings.
The researchers tracked the women’s medical ills for an average of more than 4 1/2 years. The one-third of the women who were rated the most elderly had 1.7 times the risk of a fracture occurring, almost 2.7 times the risk of hip fracture, and more than triple the risk of multiple fractures, the scientists wrote in the current issue of Gerontology. Women in that “oldest” group were also four times as likely to die during the study.
A second study examines the link between depression and falls.
Scientists from Dijon, France, assessed more than 50 patients 70 and older who entered a hospital because of unexplained falls. Two-thirds of the patients were depressed. Problems with standing and depression may have a common physical cause in the brain, they wrote.