Description
Falls, dizzy turns and syncope are very common in
the elderly, their incidence ising steadily with
advancing age. Most older people who fall suffer
impaired quality of life, with consequences anging
from loss of confidence to fatal hip fracture. There is
increasing ecognition that syncope and dizziness due
to cardiovascular disease underlie a significant
proportion of falls, particularly those which esult in
injury. The previous paper in this series considered
general assessment and management of the older
patient with falls; in this article I shall focus on the
common cardiovascular diseases leading to
unexplained falls, dizziness and syncope in this age
group.
