Nursing home residents with fewer falls had weekly, not daily Vitamin D - June 2026
Vitamin D supplementation for fall prevention in nursing homes: Fall study in elderly people in Andalucía, Spain
Rev Esp Geriatr Gerontol . 2026 Jun 3;61(3):101807. doi: 10.1016/j.regg.2026.101807 PDF behind paywall
Javier Benítez Rivero 1, Beatriz Contreras Escámez 2, Jesús Vargas Cruz 3, Loida Galvín Domínguez 4, Carolina Lagares Franco 5, Irene Pilar Morales Rodríguez 6, Rosa López Mongil 7, Nieves Perejón Díaz 8, Carmen Castillo Gallego 9
Introduction: Falls in nursing home are a major problem, since risk factors for falls (such as muscular weakness, cognitive impairment, osteoporosis, balance and gait problems etc.) are more prevalent in this population than in community-dwelling individuals. Guidelines suggest that elderly people should be treated with vitamin D the whole year. In Nursing Homes vitamin D supplementation reduces falls, osteoporosis and respiratory infections, but it is undertreated in this environment. The main objective of this study was to see if there was any association between vitamin D supplementation and the frequency of falls in elderly people living in nursing homes in Andalucía, Spain. And, as a secondary objective, we wanted to see if there was association between the dosage of vitamin D and falls.
Methodology: This is a multicenter, observational, retrospective, cross-sectional, and analytic study with elderly individuals residing in nursing homes in 2023.
Results: 961 participants were included. Only 38.4% of the residents where receiving vitamin D supplementation. Most of them (60%) where taking cholecalciferol, 35% calcifediol, and only 5% where on combination of vitamin D with calcium.
The supplement with the lowest association to falls was
- (daily) cholecalciferol (34.7%) (p value 0.05), and those residents taking
- cholecalciferol weekly where the ones with less falls (28.67%) (p value 0.02).
Conclusion: Nursing home residents were undertreated with vitamin D, the dosage with the lowest association with falls was cholecalciferol weekly.
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