The relationship between participation in leisure activities and incidence of falls in residential aged care
Tracks
Ballroom 1
Dementia
Exercise
Falls / Fall Preventaion
Residential
Wellness / Well Being
| Wednesday, November 13, 2024 |
| 12:00 PM - 12:15 PM |
Speaker
Dr Guogui Huang
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Australian Institute Of Health Innovation, Macquarie University
The relationship between participation in leisure activities and incidence of falls in residential aged care
Abstract
Background
Participation in leisure activities has known benefits for older adults’ health and social well-being, yet its impact on falls, particularly in the context of dementia, remains poorly understood. This study aimed to determine such effect, and its variation by dementia status in residential aged care facilities (RACFs).
Methods
A retrospective longitudinal cohort study was conducted across 25 RACFs in Sydney, Australia, analysing data from 3,024 older permanent residents (1,493 with dementia, 1,531 without) over an 18-month period. Leisure activity participation was quantified using the number of activities per 1,000 resident days and divided into quartiles. Outcome measures were the incidence rate of all falls and injurious falls (i.e., number of falls per 1,000 resident days). We used multilevel negative binary regression to examine the relationship between leisure participation and fall incidence.
Results
For the whole sample, leisure participation was significantly inversely associated with the incidence rate of all falls and injurious falls. For example, residents in the high leisure participation group were 26% less likely to experience a fall compared to those in the low leisure participation group after controlling for confounders (incidence rate ratio=0.74, 95% CI=0.60, 0.91). Such inverse relationship was observed in both exercise and non-exercise activities and was stronger among residents without dementia.
Conclusions
Leisure participation is associated with a lower rate of falls, a key quality indicator by which RACFs are benchmarked and funded in Australia. More recognition and attention are needed for the currently underfunded leisure activities in RACFs in future funding arrangement.
Participation in leisure activities has known benefits for older adults’ health and social well-being, yet its impact on falls, particularly in the context of dementia, remains poorly understood. This study aimed to determine such effect, and its variation by dementia status in residential aged care facilities (RACFs).
Methods
A retrospective longitudinal cohort study was conducted across 25 RACFs in Sydney, Australia, analysing data from 3,024 older permanent residents (1,493 with dementia, 1,531 without) over an 18-month period. Leisure activity participation was quantified using the number of activities per 1,000 resident days and divided into quartiles. Outcome measures were the incidence rate of all falls and injurious falls (i.e., number of falls per 1,000 resident days). We used multilevel negative binary regression to examine the relationship between leisure participation and fall incidence.
Results
For the whole sample, leisure participation was significantly inversely associated with the incidence rate of all falls and injurious falls. For example, residents in the high leisure participation group were 26% less likely to experience a fall compared to those in the low leisure participation group after controlling for confounders (incidence rate ratio=0.74, 95% CI=0.60, 0.91). Such inverse relationship was observed in both exercise and non-exercise activities and was stronger among residents without dementia.
Conclusions
Leisure participation is associated with a lower rate of falls, a key quality indicator by which RACFs are benchmarked and funded in Australia. More recognition and attention are needed for the currently underfunded leisure activities in RACFs in future funding arrangement.
Biography
Guogui Huang is an early-career researcher in demography and population health. He earned his first PhD in Demography from Peking University in China in 2020, and another PhD in Demography/Management from Macquarie University in the same year under a Cotutelle program. Upon graduation, he was honoured with the Outstanding Graduate Award from Peking University, akin to a University Medal, for his exemplary performance. Since 2021, he has been a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Macquarie University, based at the Centre for Health Systems and Safety Research (CHSSR). Prior to this, he held the position of Research Fellow at the Centre for Workforce Futures at Macquarie University Business School from 2019 to 2021.
Guogui’s main research interests have been population ageing and its socioeconomic consequences, ageing and wellbeing, aged care provision, quality of life and elderly health improvement. He is particularly interested in ageing and acculturation, health inequality and healthy life expectancy among different migrant groups. He has published 34 academic journal articles (28 first-authored), including such journals as Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, SSM-Population Health, Scientific Reports, BMC geriatrics, and Population Studies. He has successfully secured >$1.5 million research funding including the project entitled ‘Leveraging informatics to optimise pharmacist-led medication reviews in residential aged care to improve outcomes and cost-effectiveness: a pragmatic cluster randomised controlled trial’. His recent works regarding the impact of COVID-19 on mortality have garnered significant attention from various media outlets, including Radio Canada, News Medical Life Science, and Aftenposten.
