Older men are at an increased risk of suffering a fall if they have recently experienced a stressful event, such as the death of a loved one, a new study has found.

Falls and fall-related fractures are a common problem among older people. Research suggests that in Ireland alone, around 100,000 falls occur every year, with most of these occurring in people over the age of 50.

The older a person gets, the greater the risk and a number of factors influence this, such as increased frailty, muscle weakness, poorer vision, arthritis and cognitive decline.

US scientists decided to investigate this issue further. They looked at almost 5,000 men who were over the age of 65. The participants answered questions about stressful events that had occurred in the previous year, such as a serious illness involving their partner, the death of a loved one, separation from a loved one who they depended on, serious financial problems or having to move house.

The study found that among all the men, 27% suffered a fall and 14% suffered multiple falls.

Among those who had reported a stressful event in the previous 12 months, almost 30% suffered a fall where one stressful event had been reported, while 35% suffered a fall if two events had been reported. Almost 40% of men who suffered three or more types of stressful events suffered a fall in the following year.

Overall, the scientists calculated that stressful events were associated with a 41% increased risk of a fall and an almost two-fold increased risk of multiple falls in the year after.

However, the study found no increased risk of fractures.

"To my knowledge, this is the first prospective study to examine the independent association between stressful life events and the risk of falls in community-dwelling older men. We believe it provides the strongest evidence to date supporting stressful life events as a risk factor for falls. However, the mechanism connecting stressful life events to falls is uncertain," commented Dr Howard Fink of the VA Medical Center in Minneapolis.

He said that more studies are needed to confirm the findings and investigate the mechanism underlying this link.

Details of these findings are published in the journal, Age and Ageing.