Alcohol use doubles risk of intracranial hemorrhage after falls in older adults, CT data show
Older adults who consume alcohol are significantly more likely to sustain a brain bleed after a fall, new CT data show.
After analyzing CT imaging from the cases of thousands of patients 65 and older who had sustained falls, researchers from Florida Atlantic University’s Schmidt College of Medicine uncovered strong associations between alcohol consumption and intracranial hemorrhage (ICH). The team found that individuals who reported occasional drinking were twice as likely to be diagnosed with ICH after head trauma compared to those who didn’t drink. The team also revealed that the more often patients reported drinking, the greater their odds were of sustaining a brain bleed.
“Daily alcohol use was associated with 150% increased odds of intracranial hemorrhage,” corresponding author Richard Shih, MD, a professor of emergency medicine at FAU Schmidt College of Medicine, said in a release. “One of the unexpected findings in our study was the strong dose‒response relationship between reported alcohol use and intracranial hemorrhage.”
Nearly 20% of the older adults included in the analysis reported drinking alcohol, 6% of whom did so daily.
Out of the more than 3,000 cases of blunt head trauma examined, 13.5% were diagnosed with ICH. Of those, 22% drank alcohol. More frequent drinking increased the risk of ICH, with occasional drinkers considered 8.5% more likely to sustain an ICH compared to nondrinkers, and daily drinkers having 13.1% greater risk.
“Drinking alcohol can make you more likely to fall because it affects your balance, concentration and awareness,” said Shih. “It’s also worth noting that as individuals age, the effects of alcohol are increased. This is because older adults often have a higher percentage of body fat to body water ratio, thus increasing the concentration of alcohol in the bloodstream. Furthermore, alcohol metabolism decreases with age, exacerbating this effect, because older adults don’t process alcohol as efficiently as they used to.”
Alcohol has long been suspected of increasing the risk of falls in general, but research into associations between drinking and injury severity in older populations, who are already at an increased risk of falling, is lacking, the authors noted. These latest findings indicate that more emphasis needs to be put on alcohol use in fall prevention strategies for the aging population, they added.
The study abstract is available here.
In addition to her background in journalism, Hannah also has patient-facing experience in clinical settings, having spent more than 12 years working as a registered rad tech. She began covering the medical imaging industry for Innovate Healthcare in 2021.