Vitamin D and Fall Prevention in Long Term Care

The purpose of this literature review was to look at the use of vitamin D supplementation in fall prevention among older adults in long term care. Databases searched included CINAHL, MEDLINE, and PubMed as well as hand-searched bibliographies of selected articles. Keywords used included vitamin D, ergocalciferol, cholecalicferol, falls, accidental falls, nursing home, and long term care. Results were narrowed down through use of randomized control trials, dates through the year 2003, use of English language, and elimination of studies which included community-dwelling elders. A variety of research articles were found, those included in the review consisted of four randomized control trials and one cohort study. Analysis and synthesis of the articles found led to moderately strong results favoring use of vitamin D in fall prevention