Open AccessBrain Diseases and Fall-Related Surgery in Older Persons
Author(s) -
Ryuji Sakakibara,
Ayako Iimura,
Tsuyoshi Ogata,
Keiichiro Terayama,
Shuichi Katsuragawa,
Takehiko Nagao,
Keiko Suzuki,
Kaori Izawa,
Kiwa Nakajima,
Shinichi Haruki,
Fuyuki Tateno,
Yosuke Aiba,
Minoru Nemoto,
Kōichi Nakagawa
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
european neurology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.573
H-Index - 77
eISSN - 1421-9913
pISSN - 0014-3022
DOI - 10.1159/000521807
Subject(s) - medicine , neurosurgery , dementia , neurology , disease , surgery , psychiatry
Background: It is known that age-related brain symptoms (gait difficulty and dementia) increase the likelihood of fall-related surgery. In contrast, it is not known which types of brain disease underlie such symptoms most. Objective: The aim of this study was to correlate brain diseases with the types of surgeries performed at our hospital for patients who had fallen. Methods: This was a retrospective study at a multifaculty university hospital in Japan, with a 12-month recruiting period, a follow-up period of 3.0 ± 2.5 weeks, and ≥1×/week visits. We assembled a neurogeriatric team to diagnose brain diseases with the use of brain imaging to the extent possible and correlated the diagnoses with types of fall-related surgery. Results: Fall-related surgery was conducted by the orthopedics (OP) and neurosurgery (NS) faculties (total n = 124) at a ratio of about 2 to 1. The underlying brain diseases differed by faculty; for OP, surgery was most commonly performed in patients with a combination of white matter disease (WMD) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) (79%) followed by dementia with Lewy bodies. In contrast, for NS, the most common surgery was for patients with alcoholism (50%) followed by a combination of WMD and AD. Conclusion: Fall-related surgery was performed by the OP and NS faculties at a 2 to 1 ratio. The major underlying brain diseases were a combination of WMD and AD (79%) for OP and alcoholism (50%) for NS.