Psychological Resilience and Complex Movement Coordination Predict the Risk of Falls in Older Adults

The prevalence of falls in older individuals worldwide is around 26.5%. There is an urgent need to identify factors antagonistic to advanced age-related falls regarding personal safety, family or nursing care time, and healthcare costs. The aim of the study was to examine the relationship between functional fitness, mental health indicators, and the risk of falling (ROF) in older adults. Thirty-eight older adults (60-94 years; 66% female) were tested individually with the Fullerton Functional Fitness Test (FFFT) after completing five instruments gauging resilience, well-being, satisfaction with life, happiness, and perceived stress. We measured the ROF with the Berg Balance Test. All objective and subjective measures correlated significantly with the ROF. Bayesian linear regressions revealed that complex movement coordination accounted for 68.8%, while resilience accounted for 48.5% of the variance in the ROF. Moreover, resilience was also a mediator between complex movement coordination and ROF. These results suggest that complex movement coordination-developing and resilience-enhancing training strategies might be beneficial in reducing the ROF in older adults.