Abstract
Brazil is one Latin American countries that has experienced the largest increase in the number of elderly people. In Brazil, 30% of the elderly who live in communities have one occurrence of fall every year. Half of them repeat the event. The injuries due to these falls are the sixth cause of death in this population. These episodes may be related with intrinsic factors, extrinsic factors and dangerous behavior. This study aims to review the Brazilian literature om extrinsic factors associated with elderly falls, describing the environmental elements and the elderly behavior in this events, and to systematize the main directions proposed to prevent falls. We examined published articles between 1997 and 2007 from the databases: SciELO, Lilacs, and Medline, which were selected in Portuguese by using the key words: falls, elderly. Based on the literature, we concluded that there are abundant knowledge and solutions for environmental risk factors related to elderly falls. However, the behavioral elements associated to these events present in literature are insufficiently assessed, what can hinder the elaboration and the success of preventive strategies of falls among the elderly population.
Key words:
Accidental Falls; Aged; Human Ecology; Risk Factors; Accident Prevention; Review; Falls; Environmental Hazard; Behavioral Factors