Falls Prevention and Sarcopenia

Sarcopenia, the progressive loss of skeletal muscle strength and mass, is one important contributor to falls in older people, and both are largely preventable and treatable with exercise.

Falls are multifactorial: they also arise from cardiovascular, neurological, sensory, cognitive, medication and environmental causes. Muscle mass declines from around the age of 50, and the decline speeds up with inactivity, illness and hospital admission.

This page covers how sarcopenia is identified and graded, why older people fall, which exercise reduces falls and at what dose, and how to turn that into a programme a frail patient will complete.