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Abstract

Purpose: To prospectively determine physiologic risk factors for falls, and falls incidence, among elderly, community-dwelling women with exudative age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Design: 1) Cross-sectional, and 2) prospective longitudinal cohort study. Methods: In our cross-sectional study, 11 5 community-dwelling women aged 70 or over with exudative AMD were assessed for fall risk by Physiological Profile Assessment (PPA). The PPA generates a personalized risk score by comparing participants’ scores on fall risk factor measures to a healthy Australian population. A second comparison group consisted of 34 normally-sighted women aged 70 or older without exudative AMD. In our cohort study, we followed 11 5 community-dwelling women aged 70 or over with exudative AMD and 93 normally-sighted women without AMD for 6 months and compared the falls incidence per group. Falls were measured by monthly telephone follow up. Multivariate negative binomial regression was used to model the association between falls incidence, and exudative AMD. Results: In our cross-sectional study, we measured mean overall fall risk scores of 3.26 in the AMD group and 0.96 in the non-AMD group (p