The number of elderly people who die after a fall has increased significantly over the past ten years. A total of 5,400 people died in a fall last year, almost twice as many as ten years earlier. This is reported by the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). The number of deaths after a fall has increased, especially among people living in care facilities.
The statistical office attributes the increase to a certain extent to an aging population. Older people are much more likely to die after a fall than younger people. However, the number of falls also increased in relative terms. In 2011, for example, 6.7 per thousand women aged 90 or older died after a fall, in 2021 that has increased to 15.5.
Among men aged 90 or older, the number of deaths after a fall also rose: from 7.6 cases per thousand people in 2011 to 13.1 in 2021. 43 percent of the people who died last year after a fall were over eighty, 36 percent were in their 90s. Women were in the majority. They are also overrepresented in the highest age groups, according to Statistics Netherlands. Relatively speaking, more women than men die from a fall accident, but the statistical office does not provide an explanation for this.
Where in 2015, 3 percent of all deaths in an institution were caused by a fall, in 2021 this has increased to more than 5 percent. The increase was smaller for people who live at home (from 3 to 4 percent). Underlying conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease appear to play a role. In 2021, such a condition was the “underlying or contributing cause of death” for four in ten people who died from a fall accident.