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Rising incidence of fall-induced maxillofacial injuries among older adults

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Abstract

Background

Various fall-induced injuries in older adults are a major public health problem.

Aim

We aimed to assess the current trends in the fall-induced severe maxillofacial injuries among older adults in Finland, an EU country with a well-defined white population of 5.5 million.

Methods

The injury trends were determined by taking into account all persons 60 years of age or older who were admitted to Finnish hospitals for primary treatment of these injuries between 1999 and 2014.

Results

The number of fall-induced maxillofacial injuries among older Finnish adults doubled during the 16-year follow-up, from 434 in 1999 to 981 in 2014. The age-adjusted incidence of injury (per 100 000 persons) also showed a clear increase from 1999 to 2014: from 47.4 to 71.3 in women, and from 39.2 to 59.6 in men. In both sexes, the increase was most prominent in the oldest age group, persons aged 80 years or older.

Conclusions

The number of fall-induced severe maxillofacial injuries among older Finns rose considerably between 1999 and 2014—with a rate that could not be explained merely by demographic changes. Further studies are urgently needed to better assess the reasons for the rise and possibilities for injury prevention.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Comparative State Research Funding of the Expert Responsibility Area of Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland (Grant 9S018). The organization had no involvement in the (1) study design; (2) collection, analysis and interpretation of data; (3) writing of the manuscript; and (4) decision to submit the manuscript for publication.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Injury and Osteoporosis Research Center, UKK Institute for Health Promotion Research, P.O. Box 30, 33501, Tampere, Finland

    Pekka Kannus, Seppo Niemi & Harri Sievänen

  2. Department of Orthopedics and Trauma Surgery, Tampere University Hospital, Medical School, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland

    Pekka Kannus

  3. Tampere Research Center of Sports Medicine, UKK Institute for Health Promotion Research, Tampere, Finland

    Jari Parkkari

Authors
  1. Pekka Kannus
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  2. Seppo Niemi
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  3. Jari Parkkari
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  4. Harri Sievänen
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Pekka Kannus.

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On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.

Informed concent

As a register-based blinded analysis, the study did not have identifiable individual participants and thus informed consent was not obtained.

Statement of human and animal rights

All procedures performed in studies involving human subjects were in accordance with ethical standards of the institutional and national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors.

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Kannus, P., Niemi, S., Parkkari, J. et al. Rising incidence of fall-induced maxillofacial injuries among older adults. Aging Clin Exp Res 28, 1127–1131 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40520-015-0529-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40520-015-0529-7

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