Multifactorial Approach to Understand Dizziness In Community-Dwelling Elderly People: A Cross Sectional Population Based Study

Background: Dizziness is a common complaint among the elderly and has been linked to a wide range of health conditions, psychological and social characteristics in this population. However a profile of dizziness is still uncertain which hampers clinical decision-making. We therefore sought to explore the interrelationships between dizziness and a comprehensive range of demographic data, diseases, health and geriatric conditions, and geriatric syndromes in a representative sample of community-dwelling older people. Methods: This is a cross-sectional, population-based study derived from FIBRA (Network for the Study of Frailty in Brazilian Elderly Adults), with 391 elderly adults, both men and women, aged 65 years and older. Elderly participants living at home in an urban area were enrolled through a process of random cluster sampling of census regions.The outcome variable was the self-report of dizziness in the last year. Several feelings of dizziness were investigated including vertigo, spinning, light or heavy headedness, floating, fuzziness, giddiness and instability. A multivariate logistic regression analysis was conducted to estimate the adjusted odds ratios and build the probability model for dizziness Results: The complaint of dizziness was reported by 45% of elderly adults, from which 71.6% were women (p=0.004). The multivariate regression analysis revealed that dizziness is associated with depressive symptoms (OR = 2.08; 95% CI 1.29–3.35), perceived fatigue (OR = 1.93; 95% CI 1.21-3.10), recurring falls (OR = 2.01; 95% CI 1.11-3.62) and excessive drowsiness (OR = 1.91; 95%