Comparing the Incidence of Falls/Fractures in Parkinson's Disease Patients in the US Population

This is a topic that I have looked at in the past... it adds further support to the results of our systematic review and meta-analysis on the subject... I cannot understand why the authors present combined results for falls and fractures (they are different) but in the main body of the paper (via the link) they present them separately.

PLoS One. 2016 Sep 1;11(9):e0161689. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0161689. eCollection 2016.

Kalilani L, Asgharnejad M, Palokangas T, Durgin T.

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0161689

Patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) may experience falls and/or fractures as a result of disease symptoms. There are limited data available from long-term studies estimating the incidence of falls/fractures in patients with PD. The objective was to compare the incidence rate of falls/fractures in PD patients with non-PD patients in a US population. This was a retrospective study using a US-based claims database (Truven Health MarketScan®) that compared the incidence rate of falls/fractures in PD subjects with non-PD subjects. The study period included the 12 months prior to index date (defined as earliest PD diagnosis [International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification code 332.0]) and a postindex period to the end of data availability. Fractures were defined by inpatient/outpatient claims as a principal or secondary diagnosis and accompanying procedure codes during the postindex period. Incidence rates and 95% CIs for falls/fractures were calculated as the number of events per 10,000 person-years of follow-up using negative binomial or Poisson regression models. Twenty-eight thousand two hundred and eighty PD subjects were matched to non-PD subjects for the analysis (mean [SD] age, 71.4 [11.8] years; 53% male). A higher incidence rate (adjusted for comorbidities and medications) of all fall/fracture cases and by fall and fracture types was observed for PD subjects versus non-PD subjects; the overall adjusted incidence rate ratio comparing PD to non-PD subjects was 2.05; 95% CI, 1.88-2.24. The incidence rate of falls/fractures was significantly higher in subjects with PD compared with non-PD subjects in a US population.