The Association between Levels of Muscle Strength and Fear of Falling in Korean Olders

Yeon-Soo Kim; On Lee; Jung-Ha Lee; Jae-Hee Kim; Bo-Youl Choi; Mi-Jung Kim; Tai-Gon Kim

doi:10.5763/kjsm.2013.31.1.13

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Kim, Lee, Lee, Kim, Choi, Kim, and Kim: The Association between Levels of Muscle Strength and Fear of Falling in Korean Olders

Clinical Article

Korean J Sports Med 2013;31(1):13-19.

Published online: 10 January 2013

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5763/kjsm.2013.31.1.13

The Association between Levels of Muscle Strength and Fear of Falling in Korean Olders

Yeon-Soo Kim¹, On Lee¹, Jung-Ha Lee¹, Jae-Hee Kim^1,, Bo-Youl Choi², Mi-Jung Kim³, Tai-Gon Kim³

¹ Department of Physical Education, Seoul National University, Seoul

² Department of Preventive Medicine, Hanyang University College of Medicine, Seoul

³ Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Hanyang University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea

Correspondence: Jae-Hee Kim Health and Exercise Science, Department of Physical Education, College of Education, Seoul National University, 71 dong 126 ho, Daehak-dong, Gwanak-gu, Seoul 151-019, Korea Tel: +82-2-880-7804, Fax: +82-2-886-7804 E-mail: superjagic@snu.ac.kr

Received 1 April 2013 Revised 28 May 2013 Accepted 28 May 2013

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the association between muscle strength and fear of falling in Korean elderly. The study used data obtained by interview and physical test, targeting a total of 339 people 65 years old and over. In order to analyze the relationship between muscle strength and fear of falling we performed a logistic regression analysis to calculate odds ratio and 95% confidence interval after adjustments body mass index, smoking status, drinking status, cohabitation status, self-rated health, self-rated sight, cardiovascular disease and cancer status, history of falls. The levels of statistically significance were set at p＜0.05. Through the logistic regression analysis, we found that the male elders who has high level of upper extremity strength and lower extremity strength appeared to have a significantly lower fear of falling than those who didn’t. In addition, the female who has high level of lower extremity strength appeared to have a significantly lower fear of falling than those who didn’t. This research results show a correlation between level of strength and fear of falling.

Keywords: Muscle strength, Fear of falling, Korean elderly

References

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Table 1.

Gene buition (%) eral characteris stics and freq quency distri-

Variable	Total(n=339)	Male (n=138)	Female (n=201)
Anthropometry
Age (y)	70.28±4.08	70.75±4.05	69.95±4.08
Height (cm)	155.77±8.39	163.38±5.46	150.54±5.59
Weight (kg)	60.10±9.07	63.49±8.83	57.79±8.50
Body mass	24.75±3.07	23.74±2.77	25.44±3.09
index (kg/m²)
Characteristics
Age (y)
65−69		64 (46.4)	104 (51.7)
70−74		51 (37.0)	66 (32.8)
≥75		23 (16.7)	31 (15.4)
Body mass index
Normal weight (≤22.9)		69 (50.0)	72 (35.8)
Over weight (23−24.9)		52 (37.7)	68 (33.8)
Obesity (≥25)		17 (12.3)	61 (30.3)
Smoking status
No		38 (27.5)	195 (97.0)
Done		67 (48.6)	5 (2.5)
Yes		33 (23.9)	1 (0.5)
Drinking status
No		65 (47.1)	123 (61.2)
Done		19 (13.8)	12 (6.0)
Yes		54 (39.1)	66 (32.8)
Cohabitation status
Living alone		12 (8.7)	52 (25.9)
Couple or family		126 (91.3)	149 (74.1)
Self-rated health
Very good		17 (12.3)	19 (9.5)
Good		29 (21.0)	32 (15.9)
Normal		38 (27.5)	58 (28.9)
Bad		29 (28.3)	54 (26.9)
Very bad		15 (10.9)	38 (18.9)
Self-rated sight
Good		73 (52.9)	83 (41.3)
Bad		65 (47.1)	118 (58.7)
Cardiovascular disease
No		106 (76.8)	172 (85.6)
Yes		32 (23.2)	29 (14.4)
Cancer status
No		132 (95.7)	187 (93.0)
Yes		6 (4.3)	14 (7.0)
History of falls
No		117 (84.8)	154 (76.6)
Yes		21 (15.2)	47 (23.4)

Values are presented as mean±standard deviation or number (%).

Table 2.

Muscle strength and fear of falling of subject's sex difference

Measurement	Male (n=138)		Female (n=201)
Measurement	n	Range	n	Range
Handgrip (kg)
Quartile 1^*	33	33.9−44.7	50	21.7−28.5
Quartile 2	35	30.0−33.6	50	19.2−21.6
Quartile 3	35	25.2−29.7	49	16.5−19.0
Quartile 4	34	10.6−25.0	51	7.7−16.4
Leg strength (kg)
Quartile 1^*	32	64.5−102.0	36	38.0−63.0
Quartile 2	32	48.5−64.0	37	31.0−37.5
Quartile 3	32	37.0−47.7	37	24.0−30.0
Quartile 4	32	Less than 36.0	0 36	Less than 23.5
Fear of falling
No	85		75
Yes	53		126

^* Quartile 1 represents the best fitness level.

Table 3.

Elderly male's characteristic of muscle strength and fear of falling

Measurement	Fear of falling	n	p-value	Odds ratio	95% Confidence interval
Handgrip (kg)		137
	Quartile 1^*	33
	Quartile 2	35	0.290	2.13	0.53−8.66
	Quartile 3	35	0.139	3.03	0.70−13.11
	Quartile 4	34	0.001^†	10.02	2.44−41.16
Leg strength (kg)		128
	Quartile 1^*	32
	Quartile 2	32	0.018^‡	6.95	1.40−34.50
	Quartile 3	32	0.046^‡	5.45	1.03−28.85
	Quartile 4	32	0.005^†	10.87	2.06−57.41
Fear of falling		138
	No	85
	Yes	53

^* Quartile 1 represents the best fitness level;

^† p＜0.01;

^‡ p＜0.05.

Table 4.

Elderly female's characteristic of muscle strength and fear of falling

Measurement	Fear of falling	n	p-value	Odds ratio	95% Confidence interval
Handgrip (kg)		200
	Quartile 1^*	50
	Quartile 2^*	50	0.862	0.93	0.39−2.22
	Quartile 3^*	49	0.648	1.23	0.50−3.03
	Quartile 4^*	51	0.597	1.28	0.51−3.22
Leg strength (kg)		146
	Quartile 1^*	36
	Quartile 2	37	0.047^†	2.92	1.01−8.43
	Quartile 3	37	0.070	2.80	0.92−8.52
	Quartile 4	36	0.000^‡	9.45	2.84−31.42
Fear of falling		201
	No	75
	Yes	126

^* Quartile 1 represents the best fitness level;

^† p＜0.05;

^‡ p＜0.001.

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