Vision Impairment and Falls among Older Mexican Americans

Wednesday, November 9, 2022

12:55 PM – 1:00 PM

Location: Station 3

Best Scientific Poster in Geriatric Rehabilitation

Presenting Author(s)

Mandi L. Sonnenfeld, PhD, OTR/L

Health Professions Education Evaluation and Research (HPEER) Post-doctoral Fellow
Health Services Research & Development Center for Innovations in Quality, Effectiveness and Safety Division at Baylor College of Medicine U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Houston Texas
La Marque, Texas, United States

Non-presenting Author(s)

SA

Soham Al Snih, MD, PhD

Professor
The University of Texas Medical Branch
Galveston, Texas, United States

Research Objectives:

Objective: To examine vision impairment (VI) as predictor of falls among Mexican American older adults over time.

Design:

Design: Longitudinal survey of 16 years follow-up.

Setting: Setting: Community-dwelling setting.

Participants: Participants: 1,219 non-institutionalized Mexican Americans aged 70 years and older from the Hispanic Established Population Epidemiologic Study of the Elderly (2000-2016) residing in Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas.

Interventions: Intervention: Not applicable.

Main Outcome Measures: Main Outcome Measure: Falls were assessed with the following question: “During the past 12 months, how many times did you fall and land on the floor or ground?”. Fall status was categorized as having no falls and having one or more falls. Covariates included socio-demographics, comorbidities, body mass index, Mini Mental State Exam (MMSE), depressive symptoms, smoking status, and hearing impairment. Self-reported VI was defined as difficulty in recognizing a friend at arm’s length’s away, across the room, or across the street. General estimating equation models were performed to estimate the odds ratios of falls over time as a function of self-reported VI.

Results:

Results: Participants with falls ≥ 1 compared to those with no falls at baseline were significantly more likely to report VI (20.92% vs. 10.22%), be older (mean 79.14 ± SD 5.85 vs. mean 78.46 SD ± 4.77), female (68.46% vs. 56.64%), not married (56.52% vs. 46.89%), indicated living alone versus with family (79.57% vs. 24.56%), have decreased MMSE score (mean 21.88 ± SD 5.50 vs. mean 22.79 ± SD 5.13), high depressive symptoms (15.22% vs. 8.23%), and reported more comorbidities. Over time participants with VI had greater odds ratio of falls (OR=1.45, CI=1.00-2.10) than those without VI after controlling for all covariates.

Conclusions:

Conclusions: Prevalence of vision impairment was high among older Mexican Americans who reported falls in the last 12 months. Addressing vision health disparities by health care providers will help reduce falls and increase health.

Author(s) Disclosures: None

Learning Objectives:

Learning Objective #1: Upon completion, participant will be able to describe the prevalence of vision impairment among older Mexican Americans.
Learning Objective #2: Upon completion, participant will be able to identify the effect of vision impairment on the risk of falls overtime among older Mexican Americans.
Learning Objective #3: Upon completion, participant will be able to explain how vision impairment consideration should be used as a risk factor to reduce falls.