• Kakuya Niihata, Shingo Fukuma, Yoshimune Hiratsuka, Koichi Ono, Masakazu Yamada, Miho Sekiguchi, Koji Otani, Shinichi Kikuchi, Shinichi Konno, and Shunichi Fukuhara.
• Division of Clinical Epidemiology, Fukushima Medical University, Fukushima, Japan.
• Plos One. 2018 Jan 1; 13 (4): e0195806.

BackgroundFalls and fall-related fractures are a major public health problem among the older adults. Although objective measures of poor vision have been reported to be associated with falls, the association of self-reported visual function and vision-specific quality of life (QOL) with falls has been inconsistent across several studies. We investigated the association of self-reported visual function and vision specific QOL with falls in community-dwelling older adults.MethodsWe conducted a cross-sectional analysis using the baseline data from participants of the Locomotive Syndrome and Health Outcome in Aizu Cohort Study (LOHAS), which is an ongoing population-based cohort study to evaluate the association of physical dysfunction with the clinical outcomes in community-dwelling people. In the present study, the participants aged over 65 years in 2010 were eligible. The exposure variable was the composite score of the VFQ-J11, which was newly developed using item response theory to evaluate vision specific QOL, and the self-reported outcomes were any fall and frequent falls (≥2) over a 1-month period. We estimated odds ratios using separate logistic regression models adjusted for relevant confounding factors.ResultsAmong 1624 participants, the median (interquartile range) composite score of VFQ-J11 was 86.8 (76.0-95.9). Any fall and frequent falls were reported by 13.9% and 5.4% of participants, respectively. The composite score of the VFQ-J11 was significantly associated with both frequent falls (adjusted ORs per 10 points, 0.80; 95% CI, 0.68-0.93) and any fall (adjusted ORs per 10 points, 0.84; 95% CI, 0.76-0.94).ConclusionsWe found that the composite score of the VFQ-J11 was associated with falls in community-dwelling older adults. Detecting individuals with visual impairments associated with falls using the VFQ-J11 and improvement in the score by interventions could prevent falls. We may consider adding self-reported visual function and vision-specific QOL to conventional risk factors for fall among older adults.

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