TY  - JOUR
AU  - Gray-Miceli, Deanna
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/08/01
TI  - “At My Age, Its Perhaps the End of My Walking or the End of a Lot of My Life”: A Phenomenological Study of the Lived Experiences of a Serious Fall to Independent Older Adults
JO  - OBM Geriatrics
SP  - 319
VL  - 09
IS  - 03
AB  - The purpose of this original research was to describe the lived experience and meaning of a serious fall to independently residing older adults. A qualitative phenomenological approach was utilized with a purposive sample of 19, independent, high-level functioning older adult residents of a Continuing Care Retirement Community to describe their most serious fall and its personal meaning. Traced through multiple data sources, interpretive analysis of the language expressed by older adults were integrated to support emergent themes, which were then validated with secondary samples. Demographic, functional, activity, fall and injury histories were obtained. A serious fall was distinct from other falls because they were sudden, unpredictable events happening during usual activities like walking or showering. These falls were perceived “serious” because they changed life [as they knew it], signaling aging, fear of potential disability or a need to take preventive action. Most experienced distressful emotional responses such as anger, frustration, fear of falling or disability, trauma, pain, helplessness, hopelessness and embarrassment, while four encountered physical injury. A serious fall was perceived differently to study participants than other prior falls. This finding suggests the impact a serious fall has in the life of an older adult, needs to be fully explored during an individualized post fall assessment. Important discovery of a serious fall’s impact on the emotional, functional and social well being of the older adult can then guide an appropriate post-fall plan of care. Although the data were acquired years ago, the meaning of a “serious” fall by an older adult possessed enduring outcomes of a ‘changed life’, i.e., altered personal, social and functional self. The significance of this finding warrants additional study to test the notion of a ‘serious fall’ in contemporary times. Moreover, study findings suggest additional inquiry of older adults’ person-derived approaches to manage their serious fall. Additional inquiry will help develop predictive models of how older adults can best manage a serious fall and its impact.
SN  - 2638-1311
UR  - https://doi.org/10.21926/obm.geriatr.2503319
DO  - 10.21926/obm.geriatr.2503319
ID  - Gray-Miceli2025
ER  -