NEW YORK (Reuters Health) -
Older people should be careful
when getting into cars, and even more so when getting out, a
new analysis of national injury data shows.

An estimated 37,000 people 65 and older are injured each
year when entering or exiting a vehicle, Dr. Ann M. Dellinger
of the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control at the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and her
colleagues found. About 40 percent of these injuries were due
to falls.

“I think it's important for people to be aware that there
is a fall risk of getting into and out of a vehicle,” Dellinger
told Reuters Health. People 65 and older were more likely to be
hospitalized as a result of these falls than younger
individuals, she added.

The US population is getting older, Dellinger and her
colleagues note in the Journal of the American Geriatrics
Society. Meanwhile, the percentage of older adults with valid
driver's licenses is on the rise, and seniors are spending more
time on the road and logging more miles.

Both factors suggest that injuries entering and exiting
cars, especially falls, could be a growing problem, the
researchers add. To investigate, they looked at data for 2001
to 2003 from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance
System-All Injury Program, which gathers injury data from 66
emergency rooms around the country.

The sample included 14,774 people of all ages who were
injured getting out of or into a vehicle. People 65 and older
were 10 times more likely to be hospitalized for these injuries
than younger people, and women were significantly more likely
to be hospitalized than men. Injuries were more than twice as
likely to occur when a person was getting out of a vehicle than
when he or she was entering the vehicle.

Falls don't have to be an inevitable consequence of aging,
Dellinger emphasized in an interview. “It's important for
people to know that there are absolutely some things they can
do to prevent their risk of falls,” she said.

There are four key steps people can take to protect
themselves, she continued: exercising regularly; having a
health professional review the medications they are taking;
getting their vision checked; and making their home safer. “All
of those things are effective fall protection interventions,”
she said.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offers more
information on fall prevention at
www.cdc.gov/injury/ncipc/cuip/preventadultfalls.htm.

SOURCE: Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, April
2008.