Falls and lying helpless in the elderly.

Twelve percent of men and 19% of women aged 65 years and over who sought medical attention after a fall, lie where they fell for 15 min or more after falling. The occurrence of a fall with a long period of lying helpless was associated in bivariate analyses with severe injury, an intrinsic or unknown mechanism of falling, falling indoors, poor functional capacity, use of walking aids, body temperature 37.5 degrees C or over, and serum potassium concentration under 3.5 mmol/l. A log-linear model showed that a fall with a lie of this kind was related independently to high body temperature, low serum potassium concentration, and severe injury. The occurrence of such a fall due to an extrinsic mechanism was related to poor functional capacity, but no similar relationship could be found when the fall was due to an intrinsic or unknown mechanism.