More than seven thousand people over 65 died last year after a fall. The exact figure – 7,115 dead – amounts to on average nearly twenty deaths per day. Never before was that number so high, reports the Central Bureau of Statistics that the figures will publish this Monday. Statistics Netherlands speaks of ‘death after an accidental fall’ as soon as someone slides or stumbles and as a result dies within a month. The most important injuries of people who die after a fall are hip fractures and head wounds. Falling in traffic is not included, that is considered a ‘transport accident’.
A fall is hardly fatal to people under 65: they cover 3 percent of the total. The older, the greater the risks, the Emergency Department (SEH) of the country also notice: there in 2024 on average a 65-year-old after a fall, there was also published figures from VeiligheidNL this Monday. This Knowledge Center for Injury Prevention reports a “record number” of 119,000 people over 65 at the Emergency Department-around seven thousand more than in 2023.
After the emergency assistance, sixteen thousand elderly people could not return home: they were temporarily admitted to a nursing home-of the over-85s, preferably one in five.
Misstep
The elderly run more difficult due to joint complaints and lose their balance more often: muscle strength is decreasing and stiffness increases, making it more difficult to correct a misstep. Elderly people also suffer more often with disorders for which they take medicines and the side effects can increase the risk of falling. “Think of medication for heart disease that can lead to a sharp decrease in your heart rate or blood pressure,” says professor of geriatric medicine at Amsterdam UMC Nathalie van der Velde (50), who specializes in fall prevention. “If you get up from your chair, your blood pressure can then fall so strongly that you get dizzy.” Older people of course do not take such medicines for nothing, Van der Velde emphasizes, who advises them to start the conversation with the doctor: Is that medicine indeed necessary and if so, there is a safer alternative medicine? If not: is it possible to safely lower the dose?
The increase in the number of deaths and injuries after a fall is related to the double aging: the number of elderly people is increasing and they are also getting older. Of all the Valdoden last year, almost two-thirds were 85-plus. “Although people live longer, the period longer in which they are sick or suffer from disorders,” says Van der Velde. And diseases can again lead to a fall. In fact, a fall, she says, can be a “atypical symptom” of an unnoticed disease: a pulmonary inflammation without coughing and a bladder infection without pee pain but in the meantime weakens the body – until the fall follows. “People are inclined to think: falling is” just “in aging. But often there is more to it.”
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